


a moment to gather my thoughts

by anniebibananie



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everyone will be happy, F/M, Fake Dating, Fake betrothal, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, but nothing more don't worry, everyone is dumb, everyone is in love, sansa and gendry are like good friends ok, self indulgent as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-03-08 20:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18902032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniebibananie/pseuds/anniebibananie
Summary: In the wake of the wars, Sansa and Gendry face an alarming amount of proposals. In an attempt to avoid the inevitable (and while still very much in love with Jon and Arya respectively) the two decide to engage in a fake betrothal.





	1. sansa

**Author's Note:**

> game of thrones ending? i don't know her.
> 
> [jonsa playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1267341417/playlist/0NmP13h4Yh6t4JgDmGMmyp?si=Im9yOSgWRJCc1S7wv8b4LA)  
> [gendrya playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1267341417/playlist/4snBRfCMBK5L7ZPcp1uLMD?si=GYeYBzgPQHq-PkHOy-jEdA)

Sansa sat at the chair on the end of the table, eyeing those seated with a patience she could only afford because she _cared_ about the people around her. Truly, she did. It wasn’t a council meeting, necessarily, Jon was nowhere to be found and neither were some of the other advisors, but Davos had said him and Sam needed words and seeing as Brienne was here as well, Sansa had a feeling it was a conversation they thought she may need someone of comfort nearby for.

“Your Grace, we’re not trying to…” Davos began, looking back to Sam who shifted in his seat. “This is just a matter we thought we needed to bring to your attention.”

Sansa fortified herself—back straight, forearms on the wooden arms of the chair beside her, head dipped forward. She had a sneaking suspicion she already knew what this was about, but she knew whatever may come out of their mouths, she could feel better if she could hold herself upright through it.

Life after the wars was peaceful, a sort of normal that Sansa could only vaguely remember from her childhood. After Jon renounced his claim for Daenerys, and for the sake of an independent North, they had been left in relative peace. It was hard to believe, and harder still to relax into it. Sansa seemed to be always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it had been near a year and things were settling. Life was settling.

“Please, just come out and say it. Sam?” she asked, dipping her head to the side. She smiled, trying to make it clear she wouldn’t be mad, and he seemed to be calmed at least a little by the look.

“You have many scrolls coming in asking for… well, your hand, Your Grace.”

“What would they want with Davos?” she asked with a mischievous twist of her lips, knowing exactly what he was talking about. She was so _tired_ of this conversation, tired of its implications and the way she never seemed to be able to quell it.

Sansa saw Brienne cover a small smile with her lips while Sam shuffled again. “Your hand in _marriage_.”

Sansa hummed, not adding words to the fire as she looked between the two men. She had no intention of adding into this conversation when she felt as if she’d had it a million times over. There was little to be said she had not already told them.

“The thing is,” Davos began, “we have received many scrolls inquiring about your hand in marriage, but there is also a lot of talk between the lords and bannermen.”

“Arya is my master of whisperers,” Sansa began. “I haven’t heard any of this from her.”

“Then ask for her to confirm,” Davos said. “She might not have brought it up for a reason I can’t know, but they’re worried about your position. Their fear is legitimate. Daenerys is still on the throne, Your Grace, and while she has given you the North your people still remember the years of turmoil. How many Starks were killed and lost? They want to know what happens to them when you’re gone. A marriage would ease their worries.”

“It wasn’t given to us. We fought for it. We _took_ our home back,” Sansa said with a shake of her head, thinking back on that somehow simpler time. It was darker, yes, but there was a simplicity then. They wanted one thing more than any other. They fought for it, and the solutions were straightforward—win or lose. Now decisions were like walking across the ice, hoping one misstep wouldn’t have her slipping under.

Sansa liked it well enough. It kept her mind alert, it made life safer when her missteps were about repair and food storage and neighboring lands. Her mind went to Jon, though, as it often did. She thought on the way he had looked then. Unquestionably alive, and with a sense of energy she sometimes missed. Though, if anyone deserved peace it was him. She was happy he had found a semblance of it.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that,” Davos said. “ _I_ nearly died for it. I love this land like it’s my own, now, and it is, but marriage cannot be avoided forever. You don’t have to rush into any decision. _You_ are the queen, you make the rules, but it might be time to begin contemplating some suitors. I’ve had the same conversations with Gendry regarding Storm’s End, and I tell him the same–”

“Gendry?” Sansa asked. Her mind thought on the new and perhaps last Baratheon. After Arya and Jon and all the men returned home, she remembered finding him sitting in the hall alone with a cup of ale in front of him. It was late at night, the moon unnervingly bright as it helped spill into the room from the few windows. It made him look washed out and something alien.

_“I thought you would have slept better knowing everyone was finally home safe,” Sansa had said._

_He’d jolted up, having not heard her. He sat up straight, controlled his face, and she suspected the grimace he gave her had meant to be a smile. “Sorry, Your Grace, I didn’t hear you. I shouldn’t be…”_

_“Gendry,” she began. She padded over, aware of the fact that she was in a night robe and hadn’t expected to run into anyone. She sat across from him on the opposite bench. “You and I both waited here together for moons. Just because I am officially a queen doesn’t mean you have to call me Your Grace in private.”_

_He nodded. “Sorry, I…” He shook his head. “I know this is stupid, but I wasn’t sure they were really going to do it. Jon and Arya survive everything, Davos too, so I suspected they’d be back, but Daenerys to take the capitol? I’m still a Lord. A real Baratheon.”_

_“You don’t sound that happy about it,” Sansa prompted._

_His eyes were more trained on the cup in front of him than her, not that she minded. “I always wanted to have a family, truly_ belong _to someone, you know? But my father is dead, and my mother died long ago, and it doesn’t really mean anything, does it? Some fancy title when you have no one? I’m not ready to go there and be that person yet, leave all the people I care about here.”_

_Sansa sighed. The idea of leaving Winterfell for her felt like leaving a part of herself behind, and she supposed Gendry had a right to that feeling now, too. He had people here he cared about. He had a life he had begun to build, and that was hard to leave. She reached a hand across the table and gripped his own hand in hers. He looked up startled, unexpecting of it._

_“As Queen of the North, I decree you can stay as long as you want.” She smiled, something small and mischievous and that felt sort of like a building brick for a friendship that would only grow. “You have family here, Gendry. We won’t kick you out.”_

Across from her in the present, Davos nodded. “Aye, Your Grace. He’s had many offerings of daughters and dowries. He’s a war hero and a lord, and on top of that the people like him. They want him to come take his spot as the proper lord, and I dare say so does the Southern Queen.”

Sam bent forward on the table then, trying to hop back into the conversation. “Yes, Your Grace, there’s that as well.”

“What exactly is _that_?” she asked.

“Queen Daenerys has sent word,” he continued. There were scrolls in front of him, and Sansa resisted the urge to reach across the table and pull them from his hands to read the words. “She would feel more comfortable if you began to form alliances as well. She has, well, _ideas_ about what might broker peace between these two nations in regards to your future betrothed.”

“Does she?” Sansa asked.

“She’s also concerned with the fact that Lord Baratheon has been here for so long while the Stormlands are being temporarily run in his stead,” Sam continued with a nod, letting her know he was finished.

The idea of having to send Gendry away, though it would be to a castle and a land of his own, threw a pain into Sansa’s chest. It was obvious the reason he was still here, too. Obviously it was more than one thing, but it was hard to ignore the one thing it was about the _most._ She was tiny and small and seemed to be around every corner. Sansa had a sneaking suspicion he had been waiting around for so long with the hopes that when he _did_ leave, she might come with.

“Oh,” she said as the thought occurred to her—fast and sharp in the way only truly good or truly bad ideas seemed to ever strike her. She hoped it was the prior and not the latter. “I have to think about this. You’ve given me much to ponder over. I thank you both.”

She stood up, giving a small dip in goodbye, before rushing out of the room with one hand on her skirts.

* * *

“You, I’m sorry, _what?_ ” Gendry asked, his forehead creased. He leaned back against the table in his forge, reaching out for his skin of water and taking a big drink. “Sorry, I thought with a drink of water maybe you’d start making sense but apparently you’re still crazy.”

“You call your _queen_ crazy?” she asked with a raised brow. He rolled his eyes. “Okay, but it could solve both of our problems. I’m not suggesting you and I actually become husband and wife, but if we were to fake a betrothal for some time while we figure out next steps…”

“I’m not a highborn by birth, so correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a betrothal a large announcement? I haven’t heard people naturally backing away from that sort of thing.”

Sansa stood up straighter. “You aren’t wrong, but I can work _around_ that sort of thing, Gendry. We don’t have to officially announce anything. Things spread naturally enough through word of mouth, and if we get word back to Daenerys to quell her desire for both me to be betrothed and you to return to Storm’s End…”

Gendry’s face scrunched up in something comical with the amount he was thinking. “Do you really think that could work?”

“I think it’s better than me having to entertain all the men who desire to be my husband for some sense of being King. I think it’s better than you having to rush back to Storm’s End when you have unfinished business.”

He raised a brow. “And what exactly do we think my unfinished business will think about _this_ arrangement? I may be fairly dense when it comes to relationships, obviously, but I have a feeling it’s not going to win her over.”

Sansa shrugged, unsure what to say to that. “Perhaps it will make her jealous? She will come to her senses and the you can marry the Stark sister you actually desire.”

“Jon won’t be happy,” Gendry said.

“Jon is happy about little,” she said. “He has no right or say in who I do or do not become betrothed to.”

Gendry’s eyes narrowed as he looked her over, and then he shook his head and stood up to full height. He was rather tall, and Sansa found herself tilting her head upwards. “He’s going to care, you know. He cares about you.”

 _Not the way I want,_ she thought, but the time for those thoughts was not now. They were not ever, really, because it didn’t matter that her heart seemed to expand for Jon. He was not hers, never would be, and that was the problem. Sansa could not shake the feeling that nothing would ever be as right as the feeling of his arms around her as he came home, hugging her tightly to him and saying without words that it would all be alright.

“You wouldn’t have to deal with all those scrolls and betrothal invitations,” Sansa said. “Wouldn’t that be a pleasure for even a little while?”

He shook his head. “I have a feeling this is a poor idea.” He ran a hand over his growing hair, over his short facial hair, then let it fall back to his side. “I suppose it’s only right to continue being an idiot if I’ve been one for this long, though.”

Sansa smiled, reaching over and squeezing his hand. In her chest, she had a striking feeling like this _might_ be a horrible idea, but she had little to occupy her mind these days. Perhaps a horrible idea might be a nice sort of entertainment.

* * *

Much like always, Sansa saw her sister before she heard her. Arya was good at waltzing through the hallways or grounds without a soul knowing she was there, and it helped to give Sansa the edge on gossip that floated around Winterfell. 

“Gendry and you are betrothed?” Arya asked with a raise of her brow.

Sansa had been walking through the courtyard to speak with Sam about an old record on grain storage when she had appeared right in front of her. Arya looked collected as ever in her pants and jerkin, hair tied back into a braid that could now properly reach the top of her back.

The word had travelled fast, even faster than Sansa had anticipated. It had taken one slightly too loud conversation with Brienne and a mention near the kitchens for it to become apparent others were finding the peace perhaps as boring as Sansa sometimes did. Gossip spread like wildfire here, and Sansa wouldn’t be surprised if most of the castle was talking about the two of them.

Sansa kept walking. “Where exactly did you hear that?” she asked.

Arya fell in step beside her, and Sansa continued to weave their path toward the library. They made their way up the stairs. “You aren’t denying it.”

“Nothing is official,” Sansa said, leaving the words vague.

Arya was a world-class liar, and she could see through lies just as easily. Sansa thought she might be one of the only people who could sometimes fool her, and perhaps the only one who could also see _through_ her. The years Sansa had spent with manipulators—Cersei, Margaery, Littlefinger—had taught her much. Sansa had found the best way to lie was to simply _not._ You found a sliver of the truth, as tiny as it might be, and you built your words around it.

“Would you care if they were?” Sansa asked. They stopped suddenly on the bridge over the fighting yard, and she turned to watch Podrick and Brienne spar together. Podrick looked up and spotted the two of them, giving a friendly wave, and Brienne dipped forward to hit him with the broadside of the sword. He turned back toward her, and the two continued on in a flurry of movement. 

“I have no control over what he does,” she said with a clipped tone. Sansa turned to look at her sister, and she swore she could see the smallest twitch of her face. “I’m surprised he’s waited so long before claiming his castle. I can’t believe Queen Daenerys would allow it, quite frankly.”

“She hasn’t,” Sansa said. Now it was her turn to have her sister look at her. “Not for much longer, anyhow. Daenerys wants him back in Storm’s End. I fear she is a bit worried about the Baratheons and Starks combining forces with an attack against a Targaryen in a repeat of history.”

“Is that why you’re doing it? Marrying him?” Arya asked. “How would that even work with the two of you having different lands to run?”

“Nothing is official,” Sansa repeated. The words felt like her saving grace. “Daenerys _would_ prefer for me to be wed to someone of southern blood. It would keep peace.”

“You shouldn’t have to marry at all,” Arya grumbled.

Sansa sighed. Some days she wished she would never have to marry again. She had suffered such cruelty at the hands of men, and she had found nothing comforting about finding her life chained to another’s. Though, other times she couldn’t help but think on the future she had once wanted over all else.

A family. A home. Children running about and a kind, gentle man who loved her at her side. She wanted something close to what her parents had before all of it crashed and crumbled away. When she thought on the happy future, she couldn’t help but picture Jon’s face and his sturdy presence. Maybe for him, she could set aside the fear and embrace a future she couldn’t seem to fully give up despite all the world telling her she would never get it. The problem was, he didn't want the same. 

“Ruling isn’t about getting everything we want,” Sansa said instead. It was nothing more than a children’s folly, really. It was hard to articulate these thoughts to her sister, no matter how close they grew, and she kept them all inside. “It’s about doing what’s best for the people. The people are afraid of what might happen to them if their Queen falls. I am afraid what might happen to them if we continue to push Daenerys.”

“I would never let her do anything to you or Jon or Bran. Not to our home or our people.” Arya’s eyes were filled with fire when she looked at Sansa, and it made Sansa feel a pulse of fondness and love and security. “I would pick up a list again for that.”

Sansa gave her sister a smile filled with thanks. “If something were to happen with a betrothal, then theoretically him and I would need time to figure out the logistics of said proposal and consequential marriage. As nothing is official, we would be free from deciding those terms yet.”

Arya hummed, a clear anger at the vague words and vaguer intent. She stayed there, watching the fighting yard below her, as Sansa said goodbye and swept away back to her responsibilities.

* * *

Most nights, Sansa preferred to comb her own hair out. It was hard to watch a maid hold the brush, letting her pull it through her hair and having to think back on the nights her mother would do it instead. As a queen, though, she found she liked to bring other women into her space sometimes. It often brought nice useless chatter, and it was a good way to keep a pulse on the people of Winterfell and the North.

Quite frankly, there was only so much political talk Sansa could handle. She grew to like her usual maid, a young woman named Cara with round eyes and dark hair, when she would come at night and the two of them could sit in silence or chatter of little things. Sansa could seem to release the weight of her crown and fall into the young woman she still was underneath it.

“I heard the most peculiar thing today,” Cara began in a tone that dripped of innocence.

“And what that might be?” she asked, though she was fairly sure she knew where this conversation was going to go anyways.

Cara met her eyes in the reflection of the mirror, and Sansa raised a brow.

“Well, Lord Baratheon _is_ quite handsome, isn’t he?”

Sansa laughed before she could think better of it. Cara seemed a mixture of confused and undeterred by the display. Mostly, it seemed to do nothing more than grow her curiosity.

“I do say he is quite broad, isn’t he?” Sansa thought aloud. Too bad she had never liked that. She had never found herself lusting after large, hulking men. It wasn’t size that made her feel safe by someone’s side, but the knowledge of what they held for her—trust, respect, something near love. “I’d say objectively he is quite handsome.”

“Objectively, aye?” Cara questioned with a wicked smile. Before she could continue her thought, there was a knock at the door.

Sansa waited in her spot as Cara went to go open it, and in the doorway stood Jon. His mouth opened to sputter out some sort of response, but Sansa took pity on him and made the whole affair simpler.

“Let him in, Cara. You’re dismissed for the night.”

Cara nodded and gave a small curtsey before exiting the room, and with the door closed behind her it was just the two of them and the crackling fire. It was clear there was something weighing on him near the door, but Sansa couldn’t make _everything_ easy for him. He looked handsome tonight, not that he didn’t always, but the firelight and rest he had been getting the last few moons was suiting him well.

“I apologize about the late hour.”

Sansa finally stood up and moved toward the fire. She could hear him follow behind her, and when she turned around she was surprised to find him so close. He was a handful of steps away, but he looked open tonight. As of late, it came and went in waves with Jon.

Some nights he looked unbelievably open, ready to give and take honesty and shared vulnerability in a way they were still beginning to learn. Other times it felt like coming toward a wall—too high to climb, too thick to break through. Even those nights, though, she felt as if she couldn’t stand to leave. She stayed beside him and felt that same locked room feeling she held within herself, unsure whether it was safe to give away the key.

“I think I can find it within myself to forgive you,” she said with a soft smile. “Was there something specifically you wanted to discuss?”

“Sam spoke to me,” he said, and then he took a breath and collapsed into one of the chairs. Sansa found herself sitting in the other, twisting her body so she could look at him fully. “He seems concerned with the number of marriage proposals and the continued dismissal. He’s also concerned with Daenerys.”

“What about her concerns him?” Sansa asked.

Jon shook his head. “She wants you married to someone of her choosing, thinking it less likely you’ll attempt to combat her, I think. She wants me to visit.”

“Why?” she asked, dipping forward. Her loose hair fell over her shoulders and curtained her face.

“You and her didn’t exactly get _on,_ Sansa,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair. “I think despite it all she’s still worried that you want to take what she deems hers. A marriage would calm her fears.”

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “I meant, why does she want you to visit.”

“Oh.” He released a puff of breath, and it seemed this conversation topic was easier for him to handle. “She thinks it would help appease dissenters if I showed support more often. I think she worries also about me, my unmarried status, and what I might do with it.”

Sansa chewed her lip, feeling the nervous gesture acutely as she thought over his words. She wanted to beg him not to go. She wanted him to never have to leave the North again, and she had thought they had managed that with the close of the wars. Daenerys had been happy to claim her kingdoms, and she had relented well enough to Jon bargaining for the North.

_“You want to rule a kingdom contrary to mine?” Daenerys had asked._

_“No,” Jon said. “I will stay a Snow. I will take whatever name you wish, renounce my claim, if you give the North to Sansa. It will bring us peace.”_

The way he had said her name would stay in Sansa’s head and heart until the day she parted from this world. It had been soft, assured, and though the compromise hadn’t happened as easily as that, they had gotten it in the end. He had finally done without question what she had felt he had abandoned her to do alone—fought for their home against _her._

“She need not worry about who I may marry,” Sansa said. Jon’s eyes flashed to her, but she couldn’t handle looking at him. Instead, she kept her eyes trained on the fire. “You can tell her she will approve of my match, and that no trouble will come from the North.”

She dared not look at him for the lie spilling out of her lips. More than anyone, she wanted to be honest with _him._ But the truth was, he would not love her the way she wanted to be loved by him. He would never be able to claim her hand and call her wife. Yet, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go. What a horrible middle ground they existed within. Finally, she dared turn her face toward his.

His brow was furrowed, and his eyes were searching her as if he might see some semblance of an answer. Jon was smart in his own way, but she was happy in this moment he had never been all that perceptive. Some times when she looked over at him, she thought he was so beautiful it might just break her heart in two. Beautiful outside, beautiful inside, and all hers.

Not really hers, though, but he _had_ chosen the North. He chose Winterfell and their family. He chose to give up a name and identity to keep _her_ dream alive, and how could she not love him for it? How could she not hope against her better judgement it meant a sort of similar love in return?

“Sansa, I don’t understand.”

“You could ask Arya,” Sansa said. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just _say_ it. When she’d decided this scheme with Gendry it seemed nothing more than humorous, and even speaking to Arya about it the whole arrangement had still seemed that way. Across from Jon it was filled with more weight.

“Are you betrothed?” he asked. His shoulders slumped. “I need you to tell me.”

She straightened her back, felt more like a queen needing to proclaim something sure. “A Stark and a Baratheon, father and Robert had once decided. They would combine our families at long last.”

“Gendry?” Jon asked, his voice sputtering with disbelief. “What, but Arya— _Gendry?_ ”

Sansa shrugged. “Nothing is official.” She tried to imagine going through with it, actually marrying Gendry and all that it would entail. It was hard to imagine. She figured, in some small way, perhaps they would have been able to be happy, but they didn’t love one another. Not that way, at least.

He swallowed, and for a moment all the air in the room seemed to be sucked right out. It was Sansa looking at Jon and Jon looking at Sansa. There were so many things neither of them had ever said sitting between them, and Sansa couldn’t begin to imagine what all those words were. Then, he cleared his throat and turned away. The moment was broken, but it left a lasting taste in her mouth.

“He’s a good man,” he said. “I’m sure you two would be happy.”

“Perhaps,” Sansa said. She knew the word wasn’t as confident as she should attempt to make the endeavor sound, but it was hard to lie to Jon. It always had been.

When Jon left, she felt him look over his shoulder before closing the door. Felt him looking at _her._ She did not read into it. She couldn’t dare.

* * *

“Arya _likes_ you,” Sansa said. She was eating an apple, propped up on a table in the forge, while Gendry planned something out on a piece of paper. His lines were quick and haphazard, hard to follow.

“Please stop,” he began, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you have Queen duties to attend to?”

“That’s precisely what I’m doing,” she said. When he looked at her, she shrugged her shoulders. “What? Do you think I simply wanted the pleasure of your company? Oh no, I’m simply selling our arrangement.”

“I have begun to feel like a common whore,” Gendry said in response.

Sansa shrugged again, her hair blowing around her as she felt the heat of the forge bring a sweat to her brow. Some of the men who worked around were watching her as she bit into the apple again, but she paid them little mind.

“What exactly am I getting out of this again?” he asked.

“Arya seems pretty jealous, if I do say so myself.” Sansa thought about that twitch in Arya’s face again. “You might be able to work that to your advantage.”

“You know she doesn’t want me, Sansa. She turned me down.”

Sansa thought about the soft way Gendry had once told her about proposing to Arya, how in his excitement he had gotten ahead of himself and saw all his dreams shatter on the floor. It had been some time since that night, but it must hurt all the same. She understood, thinking back on that time Littlefinger would whisper in her ear about Jon and his Dragon Queen.

It was hard to hear about the person you loved loving something else more. It was hard to see them look at the all of you and turn right around.

“It was a different time,” she reminded him. She twisted her body now, moving it closer to him. “You presented it all wrong for her.”

“I know,” he said. “I know who she is, that's why I love her, but I just got it back. She’s only now finally begun to open up to friendship again, and I can’t risk it. I don’t want to lose her.”

 _You will have to when you leave,_ she thought, but it was a cruel thought she would never say aloud. She tried to hold a more positive attitude. If they couldn’t find love in peace, then she thought peace was rather lacking, frankly. “Then don’t. This arrangement was meant for the both of us, wasn’t it? Maybe it’ll help enlighten her to her feelings.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do with Jon?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“No, because Jon does not and will not think of me like that.” She huffed at the look Gendry gave her—aggravated, doubtful. “ _What?_ ”

“He _glared_ at me across the yard this morning. It was a complete and utter _glare_. I swear it could have burned me alive.”

“You probably confused his sulking with his glaring. It can be a difficult distinction.”

“You are _ridiculous_ ,” he continued. “You should have just asked him to be your fake betrothed, it could have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

“Then you would have had to go to Storm’s End by yourself, do you want that? You’re welcome to return there whenever you wish. You could marry a beautiful woman who will provide you with beautiful heirs.”

His body deflated some, and Sansa felt pity. She couldn’t imagine the feeling of your family gone after all you had suffered through. The North meant little without her loved ones near.

“I only want her,” he said with a shake of his head. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then perhaps she will have you,” Sansa said with a shrug. “Perhaps it will only take a bit of nudging in the right direction.”

The smile Gendry got then—wide, mischievous, full of something Sansa could only dare to predict—reminded her that she had once contemplated that this was a bad idea. The fluttering in her stomach and chest warned her that she might have been right.


	2. gendry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the ruse continues and Gendry discovers the depth of Arya's jealousy, the stakes grow higher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternatively titled: gendry has lots of conversations and most of them end with someone walking out of the room on him
> 
> i've never written gendry's pov before?? idk i wanted it to feel distinctly different from sansa's without the story having totally different tones every chap, so hopefully this doesn't feel disjointed?? idk fam

Not that Gendry had partaken in many fake betrothals in his life of which he could use for reference, but he found his to Sansa was far easier than he expected. Their day to day changed little, and it was nice to get the excuse to spend more time with the queen. They had formed a friendship of sorts ever since Jon and Arya left for the capitol to take the Iron Throne for Daenerys, but life at Winterfell was busy, and it could be difficult to find excuses merely to see someone who was constantly busy.

Now, though, with life settling and the betrothal around them, it all seemed lighter. She would show up at the forge or they would walk around the grounds. Some times, they would dine together at night or come in to break fast together. People were hungry for gossip, and Gendry found it took even less than he would have thought to get them talking.

“They really need no nudging at all,” he had said one morning, the two of them on a walk to the stables together. “I probably could have just looked at you and they would have thought we were having a sordid love affair.”

“Are you saying we do _not_?” she teased, though it took Gendry a second to realize that. Sometimes Sansa kept such a straight face it was hard to tell she wasn’t being serious, but then there would be a twitch—at the corner of her mouth or in her eyes—and he could pick apart the joke. “People are always hungry for more than just food. Olenna used to say that.”

“Olenna?” he asked.

She nodded, looking over at him. Her eyes were a bit shrouded, though, and he felt that maybe the ghosts were walking amongst them for a moment. “Margaery’s grandmother. She was an intelligent woman. She was the one who killed Joffrey, you know, her and Littlefinger.”

Gendry hummed, nodding briefly. There were so many people playing the game at one point, but they were gone now. It was only them left. “You think people are hungry to hear all about our wild adventures?”

“Oh, they’re _adventures_ now?” she asked, the darkness slipping away from her eyes and a lightness coming back into its place. He was glad he could help lighten her in this way, that they could get an opportunity to play at the youth they’d lost. “You think very highly of yourself as a lover.”

He gasped. “A _lover?_ Sansa Stark. We are merely betrothed that would be against all the rules of proper courtship.”

Sansa raised a brow, and her lips tripped upward in a way Gendry had learned meant nothing but trouble. “Oh, but from what I’ve heard from Arya it seems as if those rules mattered little before, but who am I to listen to salacious rumors anyways…”

He stopped in his tracks, mouth hanging open slightly, as Sansa turned to whip her hair over her shoulder and continue onward. “Sansa!” he called, jogging to catch up. _“Sansa!_ ”

So, being fake betrothed to Sansa wasn't as hard as he expected. It was nice, even, but she certainly knew how to cause as much trouble as him. It was why he didn’t feel quite so bad about the whole Arya thing, actually.

* * *

The thing with Arya being, of course, attempting to make her jealous. It was all Sansa’s fault since _she’d_ been the one to mention it, and though he wasn’t all that sure it was true, he couldn’t seem to shake it from his brain. Was Arya really jealous of the way he was acting with her sister? It was hard for him to imagine when she had been the one to turn him down, and they seemed to be finding a path in friendship, but he wasn’t going to let it _slide_ without finding out.

Arya was training in the yard with Podrick, and Gendry came nearby to sit for a minute. He had been meant to train himself today, but his body was sore and he was tired and frankly he hadn’t felt much like it. Sue him.

He could always find enjoyment watching her, though. The way her body moved nearly like it was second nature, a different part of being that she didn’t have to think about at all controlling her. She brought Podrick down to the ground, and Gendry stood up to come a bit closer.

“You skipped out on training this morning I heard,” she said through barely labored breaths, raising a brow. She slid her sword back away and straightened her back. “Have you come to make up for it?”

Gendry turned and offered Podrick a hand, who took it with a jovial smile to be hoisted up. “I’m looking for your sister,” Gendry said instead. He turned back to Arya to see her giving him a measured look.

He couldn’t tell what was going on behind that face of hers usually, he had never been the most perceptive and Arya was a tough nut to crack, but most of the time he could tell there _was_ something going on behind her nonchalant, blank faces. It was the figuring out what that was bit that tended to get him in trouble.

“Have you seen her?” he asked, tilting his head. His heart was racing quickly for some reason as he tried to decide whether she really was jealous or not.

She shook his look off, eyes falling somewhere else in the yard. Her cheeks were a bright pink, her chest puffing up and down as she still caught her breath, and he couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was like this. So unbelievably alive it nearly took his own breath away.

“I would assume she was still in her solar drafting some scrolls.”

“Wonderful,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. She did look a bit tense, but he wasn’t sure whether that was proper jealousy or simply anger at being interrupted. “I’ll see you later, then?” 

“If you aren’t too busy with Sansa, you mean?” she asked. Now _that_ seemed much closer to actual jealousy. She shook her head. “If I’m not busy. Pod!”

Gendry turned to see Podrick talking to some girl as he paused to take a drink of water. He looked up at his name, looking between the two of them and wondering why Arya was being a bit sharper. He said goodbye to jog over anyways.

“ _I_ still have some training to do today,” she said.

He took the dismissal for what it was, and he went on his way.

* * *

“I think she really is jealous,” he said leaned up against her desk, voice a little in awe. His brain kept reworking that image of her—flushed and short with him—in his head.

“Mmhmm,” Sansa agreed as she scrawled on the parchment. “I believe I said that to you previously.”

“But now I _saw_ it,” he said.

Sansa pushed a puff of hair out of her eye line. Her eyes were still devouring the paper in front of her sort of like a puzzle. Frankly, she was not finding this as monumental as he needed her to.

“Well, good luck with it.” Her words were distracted, barely there.

He smiled wide, pushed up from the table, and happily let his mind run wild.

* * *

Gendry knew Arya’s schedule well enough (as well as he could know a girl whose schedule was kept purposefully varied and secretive), and he had begun to learn Sansa’s too, so finding the intersecting spots wasn’t all that difficult.

Council meetings were the easiest. He wasn’t strictly banned from them, but it was clear Gendry wasn’t that interested in coming so Davos had stop suggesting he should listen in to learn a while ago. Davos had raised a brow the first time he started showing up again, and Sansa had looked at him with narrowed eyes, but Arya was unreadable.

“I have a gift for you,” Gendry said one particular morning as he brought her an apple, tossing it across the table.

Sansa caught it with a peculiar look on her face. Gendry could practically feel Arya tense on the other side of Jon. Who, to be quite frank, was also looking between them with an uncomfortable and unreadable expression.

“What did I do to deserve such special treatment?” Sansa asked with the tilt of her head.

Gendry thought maybe he could see her dart her eyes to Jon, but he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. When he looked at her face again it was smooth and composed.

“You were busy this morning. I thought maybe you’d need something to help get you through the day.” He offered a smile, and she gave a small one in return. It felt genuine, but then when her cheeks blushed slightly and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear— _oh, she was good._

Jon cleared his throat and Gendry shifted his eyes away. “I think we better get started?” Jon suggested.

“Yes,” Sansa agreed. The room shifted back toward business.

Gendry thought maybe Arya was eyeing him, but when he turned to look her eyes were trained somewhere else.

* * *

“Your cloak,” Gendry said as he left it on the desk beside her.

She looked up and raised a brow. Gendry could feel Jon staring into his back from the desk on the other side of the room. Jon was good at that—making you feel the heat of his gaze.

“I could have retrieved it later,” she replied in a calculated tone, the words slipping out slowly.

“You have much more important business to attend to than I, Your Grace.” Gendry winked at her, knowing Jon could not see it, and he saw her roll her eyes in response. It was large and exaggerated, and it made her look younger than the Queen she was when she sat on her throne.

“Oh, how kind of you _Lord Baratheon._ ”

“Perhaps I will see you later?” he asked. He had never thought it could be so fun to play with fire, but this was a controlled sort. It was the kind of thing he knew the consequences of would not be too dire, and though she was aggravated he thought maybe she liked to play at it, too.

“We shall see. Perhaps if I am given time to finish my duties. Good day.”

He nodded. “Good day.”

* * *

Gendry was bent over the tiny blade he worked on, back hunched in a way he would certainly be feeling later, when he felt a familiar presence across from him. He tried to play it cool, finishing off his work before tilting upward and stretching out his back.

Arya was cleaned up from when he had passed her earlier training. Now she wore a fresh pair of pants and a dark jerkin. Her hair was reaching her collarbone, and Gendry wondered how long she would let it grow before she chopped it all off again.

“I haven’t seen you around as much lately,” she said as she took a seat. Her arms came up on the table, hands clasped. “What exactly has been keeping you so busy?”

“You’re the master of whisperers, aren’t you?” he asked as he looked up at her through his lashes. “I thought that was the sort of thing your position required you to know.”

She pursed her lips. “It doesn’t take a trained assassin to know you’ve been spending so much time with my sister.”

He leaned forward on his forearms, looking at her fully now. “Then why did you ask exactly?”

She shrugged, her gaze trailing the rest of the forge. She picked up a forgotten arrow from nearby and twisted it in her hands, feeling the point between her fingers. Gendry wondered if it felt different holding weapons knowing you could wield them the way she did. Did you know you were a force of nature capable of destroying anything in your path? Or did you still feel merely human?

“I suppose I wondered if you were going to admit it.”

His brow furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It is an awful lot of time you spend together,” she added. Her lips tilted up on the side. “You do know what people say when a highborn lord and lady spend too much time together, don’t you?”

 _They once said it about us,_ he thought. _Perhaps they still do._ “Contrary to what you believe I am not a _complete_ idiot.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’re an idiot.” He eyed her, and she released a puff of a breath. “Fine, not a _complete_ idiot.”

“Do you really think your sister would let the talk of us spread if she didn't want it?” he continued. Gendry wondered if the words had revealed too much, but he figured Arya knew her sister well enough to know that to be true in the case of most situations.

Sansa was incredibly smart. Gendry had always sort of thought Arya and Sansa, and Jon and Sansa to that point, made such good partnerships because Sansa was the brain and the other the brawn. Arya was smart, too, and she could play the game to a point, but she didn’t have the oversight Sansa did. Sansa was good at thinking steps ahead, while Gendry and the rest of them tended to fall to _act now, think later_ far too much for Sansa’s liking.

“No, I don’t think she would,” Arya said. “So, then why is she so insistent on making sure people are talking about your betrothal, hm?”

“The lords are unhappy or haven’t you heard?” Gendry asked. “Daenerys wants me home. She wants me married and the Stormlands secured.”

“Then, why are you still here?” she asked.

She was testing him, and he felt a wave of feeling in his chest. The surge of a near anger, but mostly the flash of hurt. The way she had smiled and kissed him and turned him down. How quickly your dream could die. But she _was_ jealous, was she not? That had to mean she at least liked him, and if she _liked_ him then there was still hope. He could work with that. All you needed was a little hope to hold on.

“You know why,” he said before thinking better on it. Let her think what she may. Let her decide which Stark sister he was talking about. Maybe, either way, it would benefit the game they were playing.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the small blade that still sat in front of him. “What is this for?” Before he could stop her, she had picked it up.

The knife itself was nearest a dagger, though the blade was perhaps a bit thinner. On the end the hilt was intricate and neat. It was now, with peace falling around them all, that Gendry finally got a moment to _create_ things again. He had liked the act of making something he was truly proud of, and he had a feeling the knife was going to be his greatest achievement yet from an aesthetic standpoint.

There were twisting designs all over the hilt, something looking close to the Weirwood leaves, a small section close to Tully scales, and the end of it was of course a small wolf that emulated the crown that sat atop Sansa’s head. It was an ode to her, really.

“This is for Sansa,” Arya said suddenly, her movements halting. “It’s…”

Gendry scratched at the back of his neck. He was fairly sure the shock of her voice was awe at the design, and he’d never been good with compliments, really. He didn’t know how to receive them, how to feel about them.

“I know your sister doesn’t like carrying weapons, doesn’t feel like she needs them with you all protecting her. I guess I thought it couldn’t hurt for her to have one, anyways. It’s smaller, easier to confine in a gown. Thought maybe if it was pretty she’d be more likely to want it.”

Arya’s eyes didn’t leave the blade as she moved it around in her hands. She felt the balance, ran her fingers down the hilt like it was something precious. It left his throat dry, and he tried to swallow but it stuck.

“I have to find more things to keep me busy these days, you know,” he said when it was clear she was not going to break the silence.

When she looked up, her eyes held an intensity he wasn't sure he had ever seen directed at him. He wasn’t sure how to unpack it, or where he would even begin to do that.

“It’s lovely,” she said as she stood up and cleared her throat. “I hope it convinces her to finally wear a weapon. I have business to attend to, but maybe I will see you later.”

She was gone before Gendry could form words with his mouth or begin to understand the feeling in his chest. He missed her, he realized. He saw her all the time, but he didn’t get to be properly around her, and he _missed_ her.

It would only become worse when he left. He hoped he wasn’t reading into the jealousy, into the way Arya seemed to have been battling her emotion, because Gendry knew he could only put off leaving for so much longer and he didn't want to do it alone.

Mostly, he didn’t want to do it without her.

* * *

“Gendry!” Sansa said, pushing the room door closed behind her. She was wearing a particularly fine dress today, and the skirts swooped around her as she met him near the fire.

“Sansa?” he asked.

“You’re using me,” she continued, her voice still clipped as she narrowed her eyes. Her finger even came up to poke him in the chest.

His face scrunched up with confusion. “I didn’t realize that was news.”

“You’re _using_ me.”

“Was that not the entire point of our fake betrothal?” he asked, face only growing tighter with confusion. He was entirely lost in this conversation. He wished he was better at keeping up with the Stark sisters, but he sort of felt as if he was constantly playing catch up. “Please tell me what I’m missing here because I truly can _not_ figure it out.”

“You have pushed this entirely past a casual ruse,” she continued, now raising a hand up to the bridge of her nose to pinch it. She let her arm drop and raised a brow. A light nighttime breeze fluttered through the window, hitting her hair and flitting it into her face. “You’re using me to make Arya jealous.”

“You _told_ me to,” he said. “I am still clearly missing something.”

“I told you she _was_ jealous, not to use me every second of every day.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping, and then before he could get an inch more to grasp onto her head was thrown back with laughter.

Her red hair flew around her, eyes shut and face scrunched, and he couldn’t understand _why_ she was laughing but he knew he couldn’t stop himself from doing the same.

“You’re insane,” he uttered between chuckles that were only growing.

“This whole _thing_ is insane,” she continued, hand pushed against her chest as she attempted to regain her breaths. The laughter began to die, slowly and casually. She took a deep breath, attempting to straighten her spine and regain a sense of composure. “I can’t believe we truly thought this was a good idea.”

“Oh, do _not_ pull that on me now,” Gendry said. “I do recall calling you a crazy person from the beginning.”

“You still entered _willingly_.”

He threw his hands up. “I told you I was an idiot! I don’t know what you can expect.”

“True,” she agreed, grinning over at him with a smile that reminded him what a privilege it was to get to see her like this. How lucky he was that she had opened her heart up for him. “Perhaps you might want to stop being _quite_ so over energetic with me, though? Arya’s jealousy will only go so far before she begins to notice you’re acting strangely.”

Gendry cleared his throat. “Noted.”

* * *

Gendry _hated_ practicing with a sword, but Arya was constantly insisting.

_“It’ll help you in the long run,” she said with a roll of her eyes._

_“Haven’t you heard?” he would reply. “The world is safe now due to you, the actual savior of the world. If my hammer stops working I plan for you to be there to protect me.”_

He found it hard to say no to her. Well, that might not have been exactly true. He found it incredibly easy to _begin_ with a no, but she was persuasive. And he was in love with her. He was weak, he knew that.

“You’re still creating too large of a target all these years later,” Arya said as she dipped the sword forward and let it poke his stomach.

“That’s not fair. Your genetics quite literally make you an impossible target,” he replied. He swept up a hand to wipe away the sweat quickly building on his forehead.

She rolled her eyes, deflecting the comment. “Try harder. Stop whinging.”

“ _Whinging_?” he muttered as he shook out his limbs.

She struck him hard, then, and he had to stop speaking in hopes of paying enough attention to keep up with her. It was obvious she was taking it easy on him, but he didn’t feel all that emasculated. When the savior of the free world could beat you in a fight, he was pretty sure that was expected, not something to feel bad about.

The sun struck down, hot on his skin, and he was surprised by the way the day felt so warm around them. He had only just now become accustomed to the winter, he wasn’t sure how to adjust as the days grew longer again.

“You are being too nice to Sansa, you know,” she said after their swords clashed together a few times, the sound piercing over the open space.

“Do you… want me to be _mean_ to Sansa?” He stepped back at her quick jabs forward before returning the movement.

She rolled her eyes. “Obviously, _no._ I don’t understand, though, since when are you so _doting._ It’s weird. Not very you.”

He shrugged. Of course Sansa had been right about Arya picking up on it, the jealousy only working to a certain point. Perhaps one of these days he would grow smart enough to realize he should listen to the those girls from the get-go. Save himself some trouble.

“Your sister deserves people caring about her,” he tried.

Her eyes narrowed. “I know _that._ You think I don’t know that?” Arya stopped her movement, the two of them breathing heavy and staring at each other. “You should talk to Jon.”

His eyebrows crashed together. “What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything. Well, maybe that's not true.” A few strands of her hair fell into her face, and she pushed them away with an aggravated hand. “He’s just worried about Sansa, I think. He keeps huffing about.”

 _Oh,_ Gendry thought because obviously Jon was huffing about the whole situation. It was pretty obvious to what Gendry had to assume was most people that Jon was very much in love with Sansa. Apparently not to Sansa, and perhaps not even quite to Jon, but Gendry suddenly wondered if _Arya_ knew. Would she care?

“I can try talking to him, though don’t know if it’ll help that much.”

“Yeah,” Arya agreed with a nod.

Gendry didn’t know if it meant she was thinking what _he_ was thinking. He had never thought he would miss the simplicity of fighting in war compared to handling people’s feelings. He adjusted the sword in his hand, and Arya was picking needle back up again.

“Later, though.”

He nodded, agreeing right back. “Later.”

* * *

It served Gendry right that as soon as he was attempting to _find_ Jon, he had disappeared into thin air. He didn’t even want to be having this discussion with him, but Jon mattered to him. He was one of Gendry’s only and truest friends, and the idea of losing him or upsetting him due to the fake betrothal didn’t sit right.

In a last ditch effort, Gendry was going to the Godswood. He didn’t feel right being there seeing as he didn’t much believe in _any_ of the Gods necessarily, but he knew Jon found solace in it. The place was for the Starks a sort of meeting place, somewhere they connected, and Gendry didn’t like to intrude on it.

He was there, though. Head bent slightly, hand outreached to the wood. Gendry wondered what he was thinking about. Or perhaps he really was praying. Maybe he was praying Gendry was dead so he could have Sansa back to himself.

Gendry cleared his throat, and Jon turned to look.

“I didn’t know you prayed here,” Jon said.

“I don’t. I was looking for you.” Gendry didn’t feel right stepping too much closer to the tree, so he waited for Jon to step closer to him. “I was talking to Arya, and she said—”

“Arya is spreading rumors now?” Jon asked.

His face looked lighter than Gendry had seen it the last few times he crossed paths, though Gendry couldn’t blame him for that. The last few times he’d seen Gendry had all been during times Gendry was attempting to make Arya jealous. Jon released a small chuckle as he ran a hand down his face.

“Not rumors exactly,” Gendry answered.

Jon nodded. “What did she say then?”

Now that Gendry was in front of Jon he felt sort of ridiculous. What did he think he was going to do exactly? It wasn’t as if he was _good_ with words, really, and Gendry didn’t know how to calm Jon down about his feelings for Sansa. If anyone was going to be able to do _that_ it was Sansa herself.

“Just that you were worried about Sansa, maybe?” _Gods_ , he was an idiot. Truly, a full-blown idiot. “Not sure why she thought I would be helpful if you were, but…”

Jon nodded, his face tightening again but not into something _mad_ really more… sad? Confused, perhaps? Gendry could understand that. He wasn’t at all sure how his life had shifted the way it had, either. Trying to keep up with this whole charade basically left him confused the majority of the time.

“I’m not worried about Sansa.” His voice was even, but when Gendry narrowed his eyes at him Jon rolled his own. “Sansa is perfectly capable of holding her own. Especially against you.”

“Against _me_?” Gendry asked.

“And if she wasn’t, or didn’t want to,” Jon said as he closed the distance between Gendry, laying a hand on his shoulder with a tight grip and a tighter smile, “well, I'm sure me or Arya would be able to take care of it.” His grip tightened for another brief second where Gendry was pretty sure he was _not_ breathing, and then it released for Jon to clap there instead. “But neither of us would have to worry about that with you, right Baratheon?”

“Of course not. I—”

“Good.” Jon clapped his back again. “I’ll see you at supper.”

Gendry was left sputtering, wondering if Arya had intended for him to end up in a bizarre pissing contest with Jon or that had been an accident. It was as if the second he thought his life couldn’t get any weirder it kept showing him how wrong he was. 

* * *

“I’m surprised you’ve taken such an interest in the council meetings, lad.” Davos was leaned in the forge, a scroll under his arm, as he eyed Gendry. “Though, I suppose it might not be the council meetings themselves that hold the interest.”

Gendry shook his head, laughing at the jovial look Davos was giving him. He was half-sure Davos enjoyed the drama the most out of all of them, though the older man tried to hide it.

“I have to learn some things about running a fancy castle at some point, don’t I?” Gendry replied. 

“Haven’t been thinking that the last year, but I’m glad something helped get you involved.” Davos stepped closer, making his way around the table so the two of them could get nearer without prying eyes. “I do have to say, you surely know how to pick 'em.”

Gendry shrugged. “I’ve never known how to make things easy.”

“No, lad,” Davos agreed. “You surely don’t. You couldn’t have found some nice southern lady to help you run Storm’s End? How exactly do you plan on making it work?”

“Nothing is official yet,” Gendry said, using Sansa’s favorite words. “There are… things to be figured out.”

Davos nodded, seeming to take the words in. For a minute Gendry thought the man was seeing past his, quite frankly, unconfident words to something closer to the truth. Then he cleared his throat, and Gendry released a breath of relief. He was probably getting too paranoid. 

“Well, I suggest figuring it out quicker. The Dragon Queen still has worries even _if_ she’s had some words come back to her about possible betrothals that have not officially been announced for some reason.”

“Betrothal?” Gendry asked, looking around before pointing to himself. “Who? _Me?_ I don’t know anything about that.”

“Convincing, son. I suggest you figure out whatever you’re not figuring out soon. I’m here if you want some guidance in that, not that you’ve always listened to me that much in the past.”

Gendry rolled his eyes. “You reveal your parentage _one time_...”

“Aye, one time.” Davos clapped his back. “Figure it out and soon. The other queen won’t wait forever.”

As Gendry watched Davos exit the room, a feeling of dread bubbled in his stomach. He wasn’t sure which of his problems this fake betrothal exactly was supposed to help because now he felt almost as if he’d merely piled more on. He shook his head, trying to keep his focus on the present.

So what if he had to try to figure this all out a bit quicker? He had to hope that this could all lead somewhere good. Arya was jealous, and it was clear Jon was too, and Gendry was _sure_ they could get this to work out right. They just… had stricter time constraints than before. They could manage that. 


	3. jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Daenerys's requests for Jon to come to King's Landing grow more urgent, Jon is forced to face a complicated situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're on jon's pov now, babies! which means a little more doom and gloom but also me still trying to keep this light and fun. 
> 
> also the last scene of this chapter is dedicated to mere, whom without it would never exist lol
> 
> a/n: i have to drive somewhere rn but i'll do another edit of this later, so i'm sorry if there are some grammar issues

“I don’t understand.” Jon rested his face in his hand, elbow on the desk, as he watched Sansa across from him. It had been a long day; the whole thing seeming to drag out in a more complicated matter than he had intended. It was strange, the ebb and flow of life now, and he hadn’t seemed to manage getting used to it quite yet. 

He could still remember the odd feeling of after. People had been telling him his whole life he was serious, and the last few years they’d been telling it with added vigor.  _ You need to get your head off those damned dead, maybe long enough to get that pecker of yours up _ , Tormund had told him once followed with a hearty clap on the back. Jon had rolled his eyes, but maybe there had been some truth to everyone who told him to think past it. 

Because when it was gone, he had felt as if he had nothing. 

He’d filled it first with Daenerys’s war, then all he had wanted was to go  _ home.  _ He gave up the claim, and it hadn’t been hard at all (he had never wanted it, but he did want the North for Sansa. He knew that much). Coming home, the wars all done,  _ that  _ had been hard. 

Sansa had come in, though, the way she always had. A breath of fresh air. A kickstart to his heart. He wasn’t sure why he had been brought back from the dead, but sometimes he thought maybe some God had looked at him and thought  _ he hasn’t seen Sansa Stark yet, a rightful Queen  _ and decided he deserved the privilege for some odd reason. That, or they had thought it would a right laugh to watch him fall in love with an impossibility. 

Sansa looked at him with a measured gaze. “I am not entirely certain of what you’re not understanding.” 

“We began the project with enough tools to complete the fallen section of wall. We made sure of it. Where has it gone?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Oh,” she released in a soft puff, and the measurement of before washed away and he saw a glimpse of  _ her  _ again. She looked younger, then, more like the girl who would tut at him and tell him things like  _ when a woman tells you her name, you must compliment it  _ between bouts of ignoring him. Not entirely, though, because the softer version of herself now didn’t think about him like an inconvenience anymore. Now, they were family without a question. “We had to allocate some of it to the south wall. There was more damage than anticipated.” 

He smiled at her, tired and small, but a smile all the same. “I don’t know why I bother with any of it when you’re so good all on your own. I must only slow you down.” 

“Who would I have around to explain things to in an effort to boost my confidence?” she asked with a teasing smile, the spread of her lips growing as he burst out with a laugh. Her gaze lightened then, soft and glittering. She tilted her head just so, and her red hair spilled over her shoulder. Jon desperately wanted to run his hands through it. “You were their king once.” 

He shook his head. “You’re their king now. They never needed me the way they needed you.” It felt good to say the way truthful things often did to him, as easy as breathing, consistent with his nature. 

“I usually go by Queen,” she said, “though I suppose King Sansa does have quite the ring to it.” 

He had his mouth open, ready to return the comment with another remark to keep the light energy going perhaps, when there was a knock. 

“Come in,” Sansa called. 

It was Gendry who entered, and Jon felt his chest ignite with a range of emotions he struggled to untangle. Truthfully, Jon considered Gendry one of his closest friends since they’d trudged North of the Wall together, and even closer still in the wake of the wars. Often at nights they would sit together in the hall, sharing a drink and discussing nothing at all. 

But now he was  _ always  _ around, and it wasn’t Jon he was looking for. His eyes went right to Sansa, and when he saw her he seemed more jovial. In response, Sansa gave him a smile for free—one without thought, a  _ rare  _ one—and Jon couldn’t help the flare of jealousy that worked through him. There was a lot worse Sansa could do than Gendry, but it still made little sense to Jon. 

“Gendry, what can we do for you?” Sansa asked with the tilt of her head. So  _ informal.  _

“I was wondering if you would like to take a walk through the trees? You two have been locked in here all morning, and I’m certain a bit of fresh air might do some good.” 

For a brief moment, Jon thought he saw Sansa’s eyes narrow, but the look was gone before he could begin to grasp it. She stood up from her chair and nodded. 

“I need to stretch my legs, and I would do well with fresh air I believe.” Her hands smoothed over her skirts, and she turned to look at Jon. “We can resume the ledgers later?” 

He nodded, gruff and shaky. “Whenever.” 

When she went to Gendry’s side, Jon couldn’t help but notice how good they looked together. Gendry was tall and sturdy, a slight taller than her, and next to him Sansa looked willowy and picturesque. A true power alliance. Beautiful and strong and fierce. They looked lighter around one another, too, carrying less weight of the world. Jon knew he should be happy two of his favorite people left in this world were happy, but it felt hollow. 

He knew his face must have looked something like a scowl, and he felt yet again like the unwanted bastard in the corner of the feast, watching as the highborns danced around in the light. 

* * *

“You’re sulking all about again,” Arya told him. She was under the Weirwood cleaning her sword the same way their father used to, and Jon had been about to do the same.

There was something nice about the ritual of it. Jon liked that the two of them could do it together, an easy sense of camaraderie in those moments. The ghosts around them friendly. 

“You haven’t seen me all day,” he replied as he sat beside her. 

“And yet I can see that familiar groove in your forehead,” Arya replied without looking up. She was annoyingly observant these days. “What has you worked up?”

“You’re the trained assassin, you tell me,” he replied, not feeling much like talking about it. Though, he didn’t much like talking about any of his feelings unless forced or deep in his cups. 

“You don’t have to be a trained assassin to know what’s bothering you. I was simply trying to be polite, but I don’t know why I even bother.” She stopped her work on the sword, holding Needle out in front of her. It caught some of the light, reflecting back, before she returned it to her lap. “What have Sansa and Gendry done this time?” 

“They haven’t done anything,” Jon replied, realizing it was true. Nothing he had any right to be upset about at least, though that hadn’t stopped him exactly  _ from  _ being upset. 

“They’ve done  _ some  _ things.” Her voice grew more closed off, and he looked up in shock. Arya, too, was far more measured these days. She’d grown more open since deciding to stay at home with them all, but she was good at showing only the feelings she wanted to. “What a  _ stupid  _ dagger,” she muttered. 

“What was that about a dagger?” He raised a brow, interest piqued. He’d mostly thought he was the only person that upset about the arrangement, despite being rather confused initially on Gendry’s choice of sister. He had assumed maybe whatever had once been going on between the two was extinguished, dead and gone and turned into a platonic relationship. 

Her voice grew defensive. “Who said anything about a dagger?” She seemed to be purposefully quite studied on her blade. 

“You, Arya,” Jon said in a no-nonsense tone. A breath of wind flashed by them, and their hair fluttered along with the leaves. A few fell down in a graceful arc around them. “Is there something  _ you’re  _ not telling me?” 

“Jon, there are always things I’m not telling you,” Arya replied, finally looking at him with a raised brow. “I’m the master of whisperers, do you know how many things I learn on a daily basis? Many. Do you know how many pertain to you? Few.”

“Was that an insult?” he asked, brow furrowing. “I can’t tell.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Forget we were ever discussing this.” 

“I have no idea what we’re even discussing, you refuse to address it.”

“I just  _ think,”  _ she began, voice louder and exasperated, with an edge of hurt Jon was surprised to be able to detect, “that you shouldn’t go making weapons for every person that comes around! Especially if they don’t  _ ask _ or if they wouldn't understand the complexity—”

Jon felt as if a sudden light took over the space, and he was seeing the situation with fresh eyes for the first time. “This is about Gendry. I thought you two weren’t…”

“We aren’t anything,” Arya replied, her feelings still apparently moving quicker than her mind or mouth. “But you can’t just make weapons for every—”

“Arya, that's his  _ job _ —”

“Oh, I thought he was a high and mighty lord now,” she cut him off, the rapid fire nature of the conversation halting. “Isn’t that why him and Sansa are betrothed?” 

“Nothing is official,” Jon offered, though it was hollow to his own ears. A stupid placation. 

“Gods,  _ you’ve  _ started saying it, too? This is ridiculous, an absolute joke.  _ Nothing is official yet _ as if that changes the fact that the two of them plan to marry for the rest of their lives with no idea how to work the politics of it all out.”

“A second ago you were mad about a dagger.”

She rolled her eyes. “And a second before that I didn’t appear to be mad at all. Things can change quite quickly, like our queen betrothed to a blacksmith made lord who’s head of another kingdom entirely.” 

“Do you think they actually love one another?” Jon asked. 

Arya sighed. The two of them stopped their movement, simply listening to the wind through the trees and the sound of nature around them. It was strange the peace they had found, but he was happy for it. Less happy for the drama it seemed to have brought in his life. 

“Love? What does any of us know of  _ love _ .” 

Jon felt unreasonably saddened by those words coming from her. Did they not deserve it after all they had been through? Perhaps they deserved it more because of it. What was it all for if not for happiness? And yet he had never attempted to take it with Sansa. What had stopped him so thoroughly? 

Fear, most likely. Maybe a sense of not deserving it. There were more things that he struggled to decipher, still, but in truth he wanted Sansa to be happy. He simply wished it could be with him. His dark heart said he did not deserve her. His body couldn’t stop the aching  _ want,  _ though. 

“Do  _ you  _ love him?” he asked. 

“I—” She looked contemplative, open in a way Jon felt lucky he was the trusted bearer of. “I’m not sure it’s ever been my love in question.” 

That Jon did not understand. “Didn’t you turn down his proposal?” 

“I wasn’t sure you knew about that,” Arya said. She nodded. “Did Sansa or Gendry tell you about that?” 

“Gendry,” Jon said. “Sansa is too good of a confidante to reveal something that isn’t hers to share.” 

“She is.” Arya paused a beat, and Jon let her. “He proposed to a version of me he thought he knew. He asked me to be a  _ lady,  _ and now he is properly betrothed to one. A queen, nonetheless. Someone who can run a household and raise children. Be smart and quick and beautiful.” 

“You are smart and quick and beautiful.” 

She shrugged. “But not a lady.” 

“Don’t you think Gendry knew you well enough to know that about you?” he asked. 

“That’s what Sansa said, but then why say it?” She groaned, stomping up to her feet and clearly covering herself in anger once more. It seemed to be easier than emotional intimacy for her, which Jon could certainly understand. He had spent the days since finding out about the betrothal rapidly swinging between deep pits of sadness and anger himself. 

“I refuse to care,” she said finally, standing back up to full height. “He can be the doting betrothed all he wants, but I refuse to watch it. For Sansa’s sake, I hope she is happy, but for my own I hope Gendry falls into a mud pit and sinks straight to the bottom. How wonderful would that be.”

“Your best friend dying?” he asked slowly, making sure not to stumble over the words. 

“You are my best friend.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Your other best friend.” 

“Sansa? Of course not.” 

“Arya! You are being difficult.” 

“I am a difficult woman,” she replied with a shrug. “Merely fact. We should go grab something to eat from the kitchens. I find myself quite hungry.” 

He followed to his feet, realizing she had decided they were done with the emotion, and once Arya decided something that was perhaps it. She paused, though, and for a moment he watched her back before she turned around toward him. 

“You should tell her,” she said. “I used to think… Well, I think if perhaps you told her things might be different.” 

Arya turned before Jon could begin to think what to say to that. 

* * *

“What are you thinking about?” Sam asked after several minutes of silence.

Jon had found him in the library and sat down, at first opening his mouth several times to say something but the right words failing him. He wasn’t quite sure what had brought him, though that had been a familiar feeling as of late. As if he wasn’t sure  _ what  _ was driving him from room to room, person to person, as if one might actually be able to guide him to the right answer. 

Perhaps he already knew. He was simply too afraid to face the truth. 

“Do you think Gendry is really in love with Sansa?” he asked. 

Shock stretched over Sam’s face in a comical fashion. “Oh, well. I…” Confusion was replaced with distress. “Would you like me to be honest?” 

Jon leveled him with a look, and Sam shuffled. 

“Obviously, yes, sorry. Well, Gilly and I  _ were  _ quite surprised with the turn of events with a possible betrothal. I have to say, Gilly always thought Arya and Gendry had a sort of arrangement.” 

“Arrangement?” Jon asked. 

Sam shifted some more. “Perhaps not the best use of the word. They have a lot of shared history, obviously. And before the Great War they were spending quite a lot of time together. I think it was sort of assumed they might, well… Do you want me to finish that sentence?” 

“No, Sam,” he said with a sigh, running a  hand over his face. “I think I get the idea well enough. Why do you think this betrothal came about, then?” 

“There are… a lot of scrolls these days, Jon. The lords are worried about her unmarried status, and they send in a lot of offers. Queen Daenerys sends quite a few in herself, wondering about how long Gendry will be staying, about his married status. About you, too, you know. Obviously, you know, but…”

“Were these concerns brought to Sansa?” Jon asked. 

“She is the queen, Jon. They were brought to her not for the first time a few weeks ago, right before the word of this possible betrothal.” 

“You think she’s finally trying to appease the lords?” Jon tried to work it out in his head, make this whole situation make sense from at least  _ one  _ angle. 

Sam shrugged. “She very well could be, but I fear her head is sometimes working too many steps ahead for me to properly work out her plans. You’re better off asking her.” 

“I–”  _ can’t do that,  _ he didn’t finish, because he wasn’t sure he could explain why that was. “You’re right,” he offered instead. 

Sam nodded, seeming to preen a little at that praise. “If I were you, Jon, I would be more worried about Daenerys than that betrothal. Her advisors have continued sending scrolls, and she becomes more insistent by the day that you visit.” 

Jon had little desire to think about that, and less still to talk to Sansa about the visit the way he knew he needed to. He could imagine the anger that would spark up in her already, which he hated to see besides for the fact that it made her eyes a little wild, the blush on her cheeks more vibrant, and… he was not going to think on that.  _ Definitely  _ not going to think on that. 

Jon passed down the hallway to his own room when he thought maybe the echoing voice from a corridor to his right was Sansa. He didn’t want to eavesdrop, but the brief snippet he heard almost sounded… mad? And he  _ did  _ want to make sure she was okay (all he ever wanted to do, really, was make sure she was okay, happy, enjoying life the way she deserved). 

“—a bit of an overstep, do you not?” 

“I didn’t realize, Sansa,” came the response, then a groan. It took a minute for Jon to place the sound, but then once he realized it was Gendry all the facets of his voice seemed to fit perfectly into place. 

“Why would I be surprised you did not,” she began with a huff, “as if any of this has been orthodox.” 

“I made it for you. It’s all you... I would like for you to have it,” he continued. “Circumstances be damned.” 

“You do not know what you do,” she replied with a huff, but her voice was calming down. 

He didn’t want to hear more, didn’t want to hear them make up and continue on. Gendry began to say something else, but Jon went on his way. 

* * *

Davos sat at the hall table, and while he was breaking his fast it seemed also as if his greater intent was to wait for Jon. His eyes followed, shifting back to his plate as he grew closer.

Jon did his best to ignore it, still too bleary and sort of feeling sad for himself as well to properly feel capable of taking on what he was fairly sure Davos was going to say. Finally, though, he grew tired of the silence that sat between them as if only waiting for words. 

He groaned. “What? Why don’t you simply say it?” 

Davos shrugged, seemingly more comfortable now that Jon had mentioned the to-come words than before. As if now that he had been asked, it didn’t matter quite when they got there. “Your Grace?” 

“I’m not Your Grace anymore,” Jon replied. “You know that. Now, out with it. I’m tired of playing word games with everyone in this goddamn castle.” 

“You already know what I’m going to tell you,” Davos said. His face grimaced slightly, as if he didn’t want to mention it. “Sam spoke with you about it the other day again, but I fear it will only put more pressure on  _ our  _ Queen if we continue deferring the other.” 

“Why would you say that?” Jon asked, eyebrows crashing. 

“You may have favor with the Dragon Queen as her kin, but Queen Sansa does not have the same luxury. The longer you stay here putting off her requests, the more worried she grows that rebellion is being plotted. Daenerys might just take that worry out on Sansa with a betrothal or Gendry with a removal of lordship, a forceful return to the Stormlands, something of the sort. You might not be able to be hurt by her fire, Jon, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hit those around you.” 

He hadn’t thought about it in those terms, and he felt stupid and ashamed now that it was brought to his attention. Jon had never cared much what happened to him, but Sansa? He would never want to do anything to hurt her. Despite feeling a sort of anger at Gendry (mostly because he was lucky enough to have what Jon could not, was too  _ afraid _ to even attempt), he cared about him, too. Jon would never want to put any of them in perilous situations if he could help it. 

“I’ll start to make plans for the journey.” There was nothing else he  _ could  _ do, despite a general fear that he would get there and Daenerys would never let him leave. He would rather see Sansa every day for the rest of his life with another man than not at all. To be torn from Arya? To be torn from his  _ home,  _ the only peace he has ever known since that short time at the Night’s Watch? 

But he would do what he must; he always had. 

Davos nodded. “Good man.” 

The problem was, he had no desire to tell Sansa any of it. 

* * *

He knew how Sansa would react—cold, argumentative, angry. She would respond before he could finish the thought with other solutions, options, counterarguments, while he was still thinking on his first sentence. She was incredible like that. He simply much preferred when she was doing it to someone else, and he had the privilege of watching it unfold.

His hope was if he spoke to her at night perhaps she would be too weary to properly fight, though he knew her well enough to know that was a small chance. He knocked cautiously, as if already bracing for what the conversation would bring. There were a few light noises behind the door, and then it opened to reveal her. 

Beautiful as ever. Her hair was already let down entirely for the night, cascading around her shoulders like a vision. Sometimes, when Jon looked at Sansa, he was not entirely sure she was real. That he was not dead still and her some ethereal force. That he was not dreaming. 

Her eyebrows cascaded together lightly, softly. “Is everything alright?” she asked. 

He nodded. “I was hoping to speak with you about something.” After a beat, she widened the door and he walked in. 

“You know people will begin to talk if you keep coming into my chambers so late,” she offered, a teasing lilt to her voice. 

“They never cared before you were betrothed,” he responded, not entirely sure where the comment had come from. 

She had been walking her way toward the hearth, but the comment had her pausing then turning around toward him. They were standing in the middle of the room, staring at one another. He tried to pull the emotions from her face, but they were mixed and hidden, making it near impossible. 

“They did,” Sansa returned, her voice unbearably even. Jon knew too, though, that even voice was often the calm before the storm. “I’m not sure you listened before. Your vested interest has seemed to climb steadily the last two or so weeks. Why is that?” 

“I wouldn’t say that's true.” 

Sansa crossed her arms in front of her chest and hummed. “Really? Is that why you insinuated to Gendry that you could harm him?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I would never actually—”

“Then what was the point, Jon?” Sansa had a singular brow arched, one of her feet tapping against the stone floor, and she looked more like a mother about to scold a child than an equal in that moment. The likeness to Catelyn was startling. “He’s your friend.”

“And you’re my—” They both paused for a moment, seeming to lean toward the edge of what the sentence implied, “family. My family, Sansa. I don’t have much of it left.” 

This was a good turning point, he realized. Now, he could move it back to what he had come here to discuss initially. He hadn’t meant to turn down this path in the first place, but Sansa had thrown him off, and it was at times hard for him to focus when she was there being all that she was. 

“Family,” Sansa said with a sigh. “To you, to Arya, Gendry is too.” 

“To you?” Jon asked. 

She seemed puzzled by the question. “Yes.” 

“Is that why you’re marrying him?” Jon asked. So much for steering the conversation back to the territory he had been hoping to bring it to. 

“Did you come to my chamber to discuss my unofficial betrothal?” she questioned. 

_ No,  _ he should say because he  _ hadn’t,  _ but words seemed to fail him. He merely shrugged. 

“Fine,” she said with a deciding nod of her head. “Let’s. If I were to marry Gendry, I would do it for security.” 

“Of?” he asked. 

“My crown, my head, my heart.” 

“Your heart?” 

“Obviously, Jon.” She brought a hand up to her hair, pushing it behind her ears. Her cheeks were beginning to flush. “Gendry would never try to rule my kingdom, he has no desire. He wouldn’t harm  _ me _ because he is a good man. He wouldn’t hurt my heart because—”

“You don’t  _ have  _ to marry any man at all simply because they seem the best option,” Jon cut her off, not being able to help himself. What he didn’t say, merely thought in a disorienting loop was,  _ I can give you all of those things. I can keep you safe if you were only to marry me, or even if you did not. Stay unmarried until the day you die if you wish, and I will stay by your side regardless.  _

“That is easier to be said by a man whose aunt is the queen,” Sansa replied. 

“You are your own queen.” 

“Yes,” she continued with another nod. “Which means I have lords either wondering when I will marry to continue on the Stark line, or offering me their hands for the very same reason. A marriage halts that.” 

“You’d marry to stop having to deal with pesky lords?” He shook his head, ran a hand over his face. “That seems like quite a length to go to.” 

A small laugh came to her lips. “You clearly have forgotten how annoying those lords can be.” 

He offered her a smile back. “Trust me, I have not.”  _ Which is why I am here, to discuss why I must return to King’s Landing. To Daenerys.  _

“Gendry is a good man,” she said after a beat, and he knew she meant the words. There was no passion there, nothing that seemed quite like love, but perhaps that was how she was presenting it. Maybe that was enough for her after abuse and turmoil. He wanted more for her than that. “He has the right name, he would make the other queen happy as my husband…” 

_ So would I. I could be your husband and Daenerys would know we were united by marriage to her own throne.  _

“Tell me Jon,” she began, tilting her head in an inquisitive manner, “are you mad because I might be married at all or because who I am being married to? If you have other options for me then please, let them be presented.” 

_ Me. Me, me, mememememe.  _ If only he was good enough. If only she wanted him. 

“Would you consider anyone else?” he asked. 

She paused, lips pursed for a moment before softening. “If they were to offer.” 

He felt as if he was missing something in the way she averted her gaze, and before he could attempt to find purchase in her eyes she was turning toward the window, a hand brought up to her delicate neck as she looked outward. 

Jon cleared his throat. She did not turn. “That wasn’t why I came here.” 

Her body slumped against the side of the window, eyes still watching the landscape in the coating of darkness. Her profile looked fierce in the candle and fire light. Her hair fire itself, sparking with dimension in the flickering brightness. “Why did you come, Jon?” She sounded tired. 

“Daenerys requests I visit the capitol.” 

“She has been requesting it practically since you left.” She paused. He watched her and never wanted to look away, but he couldn’t help that this whole conversation had created some sense of divide. As if the whole time he hadn’t merely wanted to tell her to  _ pick me.  _ He hadn’t given her the choice, though. 

_ You should tell her,  _ Arya had said.  _ If perhaps you told her things might be different.  _ Maybe he  _ could  _ give her the choice, and then at the very least he knew he had done everything in his power. He opened his mouth, not sure of any of the words—

“So, you are leaving then?” she asked, her voice colder. “You are leaving your home and your family for her again.” 

“I have to,” he replied. “If I don’t…”

“I wish freedom meant we still weren’t forced to do these things we didn’t like.” She turned her body back toward him, finally, and she walked closer until he could see the lines of her face. “You’re going to go to her?” 

“I have no choice.” His voice sounded nearly hoarse. She stepped closer, and he swallowed dryly. 

Her hands came to the side of his face—gentle, soft. He wanted to break the distance desperately and kiss her. 

“If you do not come back, I would never forgive you,” she said. “Is that clear?” 

“Crystal.” 

Her thumb grazed his cheek, barely a second long, and he thought he might collapse into nothing in front of her. Then, she stepped back. 

“I need my rest, Jon. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.” 

“I never do.” 

She merely hummed, turned away, and he took it as his leave. 

* * *

“I don’t  _ understand  _ women,” Jon muttered, deeply in his cups. The only ones he had found drinking tonight after his conversation with Sansa were a few of the Dothraki and Unsullied who had stayed behind in Winterfell, deciding they rather liked the North (Jon thought it had more to do with some of the northern women and the usually quiet peace Winterfell provided, but he was happy to have them stay either way if they wished).

The Dothraki to his right, Kono, grunted again. He hadn’t actually said much of anything since Jon sat down, but he seemed to be agreeing with him well enough and keeping his cup full. 

“Queen love you. You love Queen?” Kono asked. 

Even drunk, Jon balked. “What? No, that wasn’t what I was talking about.” Despite the fact that had been pretty much the gist of it, well, at least from  _ his  _ side. 

Kono nodded, leaning forward to talk to the other Dothraki across the table next to an Unsullied named White Roach. The Dothraki seemed too drunk to know his own name, but White Roach seemed cognizant enough. 

“He talk about murder sister and weapon maker,” Kono explained. 

The drunk Dothraki nodded, humming with pleasure as he downed the rest of the drink. The Unsullied’s eyes washed over Jon to find the truth. 

“ _ No,  _ that's not— what are people saying around this castle?” 

“Say?” Kono asked. “We say nothing. Hear? We hear much. No one think we understand.” 

“We understand,” White Roach spoke, voice sharp but clear. 

“I… need to go to bed.” Jon stumbled to his feet, having to pause a second to grab his bearings. As he made his way out of the hall, over the sounds of the other tables of men drinking, he could hear them still. 

“He love her,” he heard Kono attempt to whisper, though the sound was loud and clear. 

“It is known,” White Roach answered. 

Jon hoped this was all a drunken hallucination. Or at the very least, he was drunk enough to forget about it by the morning. 


	4. arya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing tired of the games, Arya takes action.

Arya wasn’t sure what was going on, but she was fairly sure there was  _ something _ . The fact that she couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of it bothered her more than anything. For years she had been trained to pick up on everything, to let no one pick it up in return, but whatever the hell was going on in Winterfell was enough to confuse her. 

Maybe it was the fact that she had let herself relax, let herself get comfortable, or maybe it was because she had gotten too blind to those around her. It was harder to want to pick up secrets from the people you loved, easier without meaning it to be and harder still because of the affection, the desire to sometimes  _ not  _ read things. It was a lot, Arya didn’t know how to vocalize it, it was all… fine. She was doing quite fine. 

The whispers of the castle grew louder, practically not whispers at all. Mostly, they did nothing but help to confuse her more. 

* * *

“The blacksmith lord has begun to hang around a lot,” said a maid, Arya was fairly sure it was Sansa’s—Clara? Cara?—in the kitchens a few days prior. “He’s quite attractive, if I do say so myself.” 

“I thought him and the princess…” trailed off another one as she sat on a bench, folding linens. She huffed and paused, wiping sweat from her brow. 

“You see,” Cara continued, eyes expressive as she leaned forward from her own spot. She was picking bits of fruit from a nearby bowl, popping them in her mouth. “That’s the  _ thing.  _ The Baratheon has been spending quite a bit of time with the Queen, but I’ve still seen him with the princess. They do get… quite  _ physical. _ ”

The other maid rolled her eyes. “Cara. They sword fight together. Don’t make it sound like a romp in the hay.” 

“I’m simply saying!” She held her arms up, reaching back for another piece of fruit before smiling wider. “And the cousin…”

“Oh, here we go again,” a third woman who was older and grayer appeared, carrying a bag of potatoes. She dropped the bag to the ground with a grunt. “She does love to go on all about her thoughts on the Queen and the Snow boy.” 

“He comes to her room quite late at night! Frequently at that,” Cara said. “I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility to  _ assume _ —”

Arya slipped away, onto the next thing. 

* * *

“Drunk as Essosi rat,” the Dothraki said as he mixed mortar for the wall they were rebuilding. 

An Unsullied stood nearby, waiting by the stones. “What did he say?”

“Very drunk. All lies.” He grunted as he moved a rock, and then he set it down in place as the Unsullied stood beside him to hold it, grabbing behind him for a tool. “He loves the Queen. Queen doesn’t love weapon maker. He think she does.” 

The Unsullied stayed quiet for some time, the two of them working in silence. “What of short, angry one?” he asked.

Arya… did not care much to hear about herself. 

* * *

In the hallway, Arya slipped into the shadows of the corner. Shadows, and corners, were the easiest to hide away in. Eyes seemed to pass over them easily, ignoring what could be lurking within.  

“He has agreed to go, finally,” Davos began. Arya could tell it was Sam beside him though she couldn’t quite get a look, the quick short steps giving him away. 

“Don’t you think, well, it might be  _ best _ if…”

“What of it, Sam?” 

“Perhaps if he were to get his story straight before leaving, I mean… We don’t want the Queen hearing anything potentially problematic.” 

“Are you talking about this Queen Sansa and Gendry business?” 

“I’m not saying it  _ couldn’t  _ be legitimate and long-lasting, I’m simply saying…” 

Davos sighed. Their footsteps stopped. “I know. It does seem like they’ve all got themselves in quite the mess, haven’t they? If the boy could just  _ do  _ something—”

“Which boy?” 

“Take your pick.” Davos laughed, and Sam gave a brief chuckle in reply. 

Arya had perhaps too many things to think about. And in every corner, it seemed as if she couldn’t escape her own name.

* * *

Arya knew the sounds of her family approaching well enough, and she knew, usually, what to expect of it. There was a sort of gruffness to Jon’s walk. A quick, smooth pace to Sansa’s. Gendry was, well, usually Arya approached  _ him _ , but he had even, albeit loud, steps when he did come to find her. 

Today, Jon came to her rooms. It was odd to find her there besides for late at night, so Arya wondered how he had known today she was here. There had been a lot to process, to roll around in her head until she could seem to make sense of it, and she had needed silence. 

Maybe Jon would always know her in a way she couldn’t quite name. A connection between two misfits. And while they may have grown since being young and unruly, grew more accepted, Arya thought there would always be that thread. Two people who weren’t quite accepted for who they were quite naturally. 

He knocked, and Arya went to grab the door. 

His eyes looked sad when she first scanned him, though his eyes happened to look sad a lot. Jon was an emotional sort, really. He liked to pretend he wasn’t, that things didn’t get to him, but his heart was too big. He felt too much. Arya thought that was secretly why him and Sansa got on so well—their big hearts and their feelings and all the ways they tried to tamp it down to avoid the pain it could (and had) caused them. 

Not that it worked all that well. Look where it had gotten them now. 

“I’ve come to talk to you,” Jon said gravely, as if this was some sort of life or death discussion about to take place. Arya sighed, anticipating the inevitable. 

“I assumed so,” Arya said, opening the door wider. “I didn’t think you would come to simply stare at me, but maybe life has truly gotten so dull you would consider it. How am I to know.” 

“Arya…” he trailed off, falling into a chair by the fire with an exhausted, clumsy thunk. 

She rolled her eyes. “I know. I know. You’ve come to speak of something  _ quite serious,  _ and I am prepared to take it quite seriously in return.” 

He paused, running a hand over his face as he leaned on one of his forearms on the arm of his chair. Arya decided to walk over closer, hands behind her back still, as she moved toward the hearth. 

“I am meant to go to the capitol.” 

Frankly, he didn’t seem all that excited about the prospect, and Arya could understand why. She didn’t want him to go either, and Arya was sure every other person in Winterfell probably felt the same. Not a lot of Dragon Queen fans in The North. It must have been what Davos and Sam were talking about earlier when they’d said he had finally agreed to go. 

Arya had known Daenerys was becoming more insistent about a lot of things. She hadn’t expected any of them to have to deal with any of it, though. At least not yet.

“As an independent nation I believe we named our own capitol, didn’t we?” she asked. She picked the blade from its sheath on her hip and twisted it around in her hands a few times, feeling the familiar weight and finding comfort in it. 

When she looked over at Jon, he seemed unamused by her wordplay. She sat down in the chair across from him, still flipping her knife back and forth between her palms before putting it away. It helped center her to feel the dagger in her hands, to calm her. She had a feeling she was going to need to be calm for this. 

“I know you don’t want me to go,” he said. 

“That’s not it,” she said. “Well, yes it is it. You also  _ should  _ not go. Jon, there is nothing safe about you going on a month’s journey and then disappearing to the capitol for an undetermined amount of time. Do you know how long you could be gone? That you might not return?” 

Jon rolled his eyes. “Daenerys won’t  _ kill  _ me.” 

Arya wasn’t so sure about that, really. “What makes you so certain?” 

“If she did she would have Sansa marching a whole army to her gates,” he said. “We also saved King’s Landing by orchestrating food delivery and lumber for reconstruction after the end of the wars. Frankly, they can’t afford to kill me.” 

“Wow,” she said, deadpan and with a blank face, “you speak so highly of your queen.”

“She is not my queen,” he said sharply. 

“I don’t know,” Arya teased. “I’ve heard you use those words before, you only said it about… hm… a—”

“ _ Sansa _ is my queen. You know I did what had to be done,” he cut her off, brow furrowed. 

“And now you should be saved from that,” Arya said. She was trying to remain calm, for Jon’s sake and the sake of this whole arrangement, but she couldn’t help feeling frustrated by all of this. She didn’t  _ like  _ the games. She liked  _ action.  _  “What are you going to tell Sansa?” 

“Her and I have already discussed it,” Jon said with a shrug. 

Arya narrowed her eyes. “And she was  _ fine  _ with it?” 

He shrugged again. He looked like he was purposefully ignoring the question. 

“I may have… gotten a bit side-tracked during the conversation, but it all got there in the end.” 

“Jon.” 

He looked at her. “Arya,” he repeated, voice clipped. 

She wanted to strangle him. “What do you mean exactly by side-tracked? Is there something I should know or…” 

“Arya, it doesn’t matter. I swear it.” He paused, running a hand over his jaw and the stubble there. “Perhaps it will be for the best. I can discuss Gendry and Sansa’s arrangement with Daenerys.” 

Her eyes narrowed at him again. Honestly, she couldn’t stand the back and forth. All four of them and their conversations, and their trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and none of them getting what they wanted. Though, how was she to know what Gendry wanted. Maybe she had given up that right some time ago? Or was she still doing it, feeding into the frenzy of this arrangement?

It was too confusing. Everyone in this castle seemed to have some thought on it all, and she couldn’t pull them apart to find her own. She couldn’t stand it all for another second, and that was perhaps why she stood up and stared him down. 

Her firsts were clenched at her sides. “You love her,” Arya said. “I won’t say I don’t think it’s all a bit  _ strange _ because it certainly is. I don’t get whatever happened between you two, and frankly I don’t want to, but don’t go on pretending you’re all fine with this whole arrangement.” 

“I don’t—” He stopped, maybe realizing the words were futile. Maybe he had gotten sick of pretending it was all some sense of familial concern and not jealousy. “And what would you have me do?” he asked, rising to his feet and standing a few feet away, now above her. 

Arya hated when he did that, and she was left having to tilt her head up suddenly. “Tell her!” Arya exclaimed, waving her hands about wildly. “At the very least don’t go telling your aunt all about her marriage to Gendry.  _ That  _ certainly won’t help you.” 

“It won’t make a difference,” Jon said, shaking his head. “Not if she loves him…” 

“You’re thick. Absolutely  _ thick _ .” Arya sighed. “I need to go talk to Sansa about this. The only reasonable one out of the whole lot of you.” She paused. “Well, maybe not. This whole thing is such a mess.” 

She flung her hands up, storming toward the door, but when she got to the doorway she turned to catch his confused expression. 

“Did you really get as drunk as an Essosi Rat?” she asked, head tilted. “With Unsullied and Dothraki?” 

“I— What? How do you…” 

“Confirmation enough,” she said, waving another hand and rushing out before Jon could retort with anything else. There was business to be done. 

* * *

Arya didn’t bother knocking to get into Sansa’s solar, already knowing her to be doing ledgers at her desk on the other side of the room. She assumed, anyways, because Sansa on the daily was usually rather predictable. In a good way, Arya would remedy, but predictable all the same. 

“What are you doing?” Arya asked after she had flung open the door, stopping in the middle of the room. 

Sansa looked up slowly, as if used to her shenanigans which, frankly, she most likely was at this point. They knew each other fairly well at this point, Arya liked to think. Though, she was  _ annoyed  _ that Sansa wasn’t understanding the true gravitos of the situation. 

“The ledger,” she said, raising a brow. “Why are you throwing open the door dramatically to ask me about my daily chores?” 

“That’s not— Of  _ course  _ you would be difficult about this,” Arya said with a sigh. 

Sansa’s raised brow seemed to grow higher on her forehead. “About me answering a question you asked me? With the appropriate response? Are you feeling alright, Arya?” 

“I’m a specimen of health,” she replied. “This was all supposed to be quite dramatic in a revelatory sort of way. Imagine me as a sort of guiding presence in your life.” 

“Arya…” Sansa seemed to draw her name out, and she leaned back in her chair. The feeling of the crown, of her as royalty, fell away more until it looked like Arya’s sister in front of her. “I mean no offense, but I have no idea what you could possibly be guiding me with.” 

Arya rolled her eyes. So  _ insulting.  _ “I spoke to Jon, you know.” 

Sansa released a puff of breath, her face closing slightly. She grabbed back up her quill and turned her gaze toward the parchment in front of her. “Oh, did you?” Her voice was a practiced sort of calm. 

Arya could pick right through it, which meant Sansa was feeling vulnerable clearly. Sansa was one of the few people Arya had a hard time really seeing past the mask with, a truly trained player. In the right circumstances it was almost fun. Other times, like now when it meant Arya could  _ tell  _ something was off, it was just carried with sadness. 

“Yes. I just said I did.” Arya walked closer, feeling the distance of the space. “He told me he’s going to the capitol to visit Daenerys. He told me you already knew about it.” 

“He informed me of his travels, yes,” Sansa confirmed. 

“Sansa,” Arya began, voice growing in frustration. “ _ Sansa, _ for fuck’s sake look at me!” 

Sansa’s eyes snapped upward. “Arya!”

“Now you sound like an actual person, like  _ you. _ ” Arya shook her head, approaching the desk Sansa sat at and laying her palms flat on it. From here, it was near impossible for the two of them to break eye contact. “Throw away all the pretense for a single minute, please. I’m your sister. Be honest with me.” 

“When will  _ you  _ be honest with  _ me _ ?” Sansa asked with defiance. “Tell me, why do you continue to pretend you’re fine with my betrothal when you are clearly in love with him?” 

Arya sputtered for a minute, but it wasn’t as if the answer was  _ hard.  _ “I want you to be happy,” she said, plain and simple. “If Gendry was going to do that for you, and you were going to do that for him…” she trailed off and shrugged. Then she hit her hands against the table again, making them both jump. “But he doesn’t, or he doesn’t  _ not _ but Jon could  _ more.  _ This is all getting mixed up.” 

“I can hear that,” Sansa said, but there was a smile at the curve of her lips that wasn’t there earlier. “What are you attempting to accuse me of, Arya.” 

“You love Jon,” Arya said. “I truly do  _ not  _ understand it, but you do. If you two could stop dancing around it, then perhaps—”

“Jon doesn’t love me,” Sansa said with a shake of her head. “I practically told him yesterday evening if he were just ask for my hand, I would give it, and he completely diverted the conversation.” 

“I— Wow, so _thick_ ,” Arya muttered, her face pinching as she contemplated the words. What should would have given to be in the shadowed corner of  _ that  _ room while they had that conversation. Well, maybe not if it meant having to watch them stare passionately at one another. But the amount of miscommunication that was seeming to exist… “He does. He’s just an idiot.” 

Sansa’s lips curled up more. “Gendry isn’t much better.” 

“Oh, Gendry is  _ just  _ as dumb. We’re in love with idiots,” Arya replied. 

“You love him?” she asked, and her voice was soft. Soft Sansa was so rare, so beautiful. Arya nodded, feeling as if she could barely stand to speak. “I told him he shouldn’t have made me that knife, he wasn’t thinking at all, but he doesn’t  _ love _ me.”

“That stupid dagger,” Arya hissed, shaking her head. “It’s so beautiful, I swear it…” she trailed off, letting the initial spike of anger dissipate. She met her sister’s gaze, and there was a seriousness to the air between them. A seriousness that felt both big and small, but it was  _ present  _ all the same. “You should keep the dagger, you know,” Arya said. “It’s a good dagger. It would be nice to protect yourself.” 

“I have,” Sansa said with a nod. “I’m working on stitching a proper holster for it. It was a nice gift, though perhaps ill-thought out.” 

Arya nodded. The two of them sitting there in the moment. 

“What are  _ you  _ doing?” Sansa asked, tilting her head knowingly. “You have a man who loves you, and you’re standing here talking to me?” 

“It would ruin your betrothal,” Arya pointed out, but she could already feel it—the energy building within her, momentum growing, the possibility of a beautiful something at her fingertips. 

Sansa shrugged. “It was all a ruse in the first place.” Her face grew stern then, something that nearly resembled Catelyn when she used to tell her off for getting mud over her fancy new dress or had skipped out on a lesson. That was to say, scolding but full of fondness. “Well, go on. What are you still doing with  _ me. _ ” 

To be quite honest, Arya didn’t know. So, she gave her sister one last smile before running out of the room. 

* * *

Arya could imagine how the whole idea of running to someone—needing to tell them you love them right in that moment, needing to take that final step—would  _ seem  _ romantic in a theory of the word, but in reality she was just… well, she was really mostly getting sweaty. The sun was out today, and as it turned out she didn’t actually know where Gendry  _ was.  _

Which meant she was left running around Winterfell in hopes of finding him, and she had not _yet_ found him. He wasn’t in the forge, which was the easiest suggestion, and he didn’t seem to be practicing with his axe or walking through the woods. Podrick was helping with some construction work, and when he saw her jogging about Winterfell like an actual idiot, he simply held out his water for her with a tilt of his head. 

She practically drank the whole thing before speaking a word. 

“Are you looking for Gendry?” he asked. 

In another situation Arya might have found it frustrating how predictable she was, but there was little left for her ego at this point. She had spent the last few weeks hearing the entire castle gossip about her, Gendry, Sansa, and Jon, and essentially what she had learned was that they all thought they had a say in their love lives. And that their say was more right than the people actually  _ partaking.  _

“Yeah,” she answered with a nod. She didn’t trust herself to say more than that because she actually felt a little winded, which was ridiculous considering how much fitness she partook in on a daily basis. 

“I heard he was going to the kitchens,” Podrick told her. 

She finally handed his flagon back to him, now nearly empty. “Thank you.” 

He nodded, and she was off again, and why was she bothering to run? The single extra minute it would have taken to get her there could not have possibly been that important. Whatever. She had committed to the whole act now, she needed to follow through. 

She never made it to the kitchens because he was only halfway there, still walking through the hallway and about to go down the stairs when she saw him. 

“Gendry Waters!” she called. 

He turned, face twisted in confusion, toward the loud utterance of his name. “Did you run here?” he asked, tilting his head. “Why have you been  _ running _ ? Is someone chasing you? Also, it’s Baratheon now, you know.” 

“The running bit doesn’t matter,” She said, tossing her hand in front of her to emphasize the lack of importance. “And you’ll always be Waters to me, Baratheon.” 

“That sentence seems contradictory.” His face still seemed steeped in confusion. He took a few steps away from the stairs and toward her, his nose scrunched. “And what does it mean? That I’m always a lowborn bastard?” 

“The person I first met,” she said. Gods, this wasn’t coming out right, was it? She was trying to be straightforward and honest, but words didn’t work much for her. It was why she had basically jumped him when she wanted him the night before the Great War, and why so much of it all had fallen apart quickly after. “The person I asked to be my family.” 

He stilled. The confusion melted, and in its place was nothing. “Why were you running, Arya?” 

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. This was all easier in theory. “You gave my sister a dagger.” 

He winced. “I did. She has since informed me that it might have been… misconstrued, really.” 

“I was jealous,” she said. He didn’t seem surprised by that. 

“I know.” He didn’t say it smugly, merely fact. 

“When you made her the dagger, though… I thought maybe it was actually love.” Her mind went to that beautiful weapon he had made  _ her  _ now more than a year ago, and how it had felt in her hands. To know he had crafted it with  _ her  _ in mind, knowing she would wield it, making it just for her. It was an act of love, really. That was how it had felt. 

To see him working so hard on Sansa’s, well… that was the first time she had thought maybe it was all properly real. That the man she loved might love her sister instead, and while Arya didn’t feel that swell of jealousy to be Sansa anymore—they were past it, and Arya was never going to apologize for who she was—for a moment she could feel it sharp and hot in her chest. 

She would never be a lady. A lady was who he had gotten. The best one Arya knew, too.

He brought a hand up to the side of his face and scratched at his stubble, twisting his eyes away from her and to… anywhere else, it would seem. She knew she shouldn’t enjoy his discomfort so much, but there was something pleasing about it in the face of her own vulnerability about the whole thing. 

His eyes met hers again. The hallway felt charged. “I don’t know what you  _ want  _ me to say,” he told her. 

“I don’t want you to tell me anything but the truth.” She took steps closer, leaving them with a few wide steps between them. It wouldn’t be too hard to breach the distance if either of them really wanted. “Do you love her?” 

He shook his head, pausing to swallow visibly and clear his throat. “Arya, I…” He sighed, then groaned. “It hasn’t changed. None of it. I’m still here because none of it means much of anything without you.”

“Then you became betrothed to my sister?” she teased, raising a brow, but the joking fell away when she remembered the weight of the truth, the weight of what she wanted. “I’m still not a lady.” 

He looked nervous, but his lips twitched the slightest bit like they were fighting for a smile. “I know that. Sansa and I may have had several conversations about my ill use of words. I  _ also  _ may have been a bit drunk and caught up in the moment.” 

“You became betrothed to someone who is… not all that like me,” Arya said. 

Gendry shrugged. “I wouldn't say that. You and Sansa? Both passionate. Both love your family. Both smart and funny, just in different ways.” He smiled at her now. “It was for convenience, nothing else, Arya. I love your sister, but not in the way you worried.” 

She took a few steps toward him, coming an arm’s reach away. It felt dangerous and exhilarating to step closer, to be this near him and know the possibility it held. The near certainty of it, truly. 

“Don’t marry her,” Arya told him. She said it the way she might tell someone an unimportant bit of news or a fact. It was said easily, effortlessly, but there was a current of something pulsing through it. The awareness that they were not stepping back from this. 

“I never planned to,” he told her. Gendry broke the distance and brought a large hand to her cheek. 

She felt tiny next to him, but she didn’t feel weak. When he held her in his hands, she always felt like he held her the way you held a weapon—as if you knew the power, the possible destruction, and you needed it, wanted it anyways. You held it cautiously because you understood what it could do to you. 

“Be with me,” she ordered. 

“Is that what my princess wants?” he asked. 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not much of a princess, and I’m certainly not  _ yours.  _ You’re pledged to House Targaryen, or did you forget?”

“A technicality,” he said with a shrug. “My heart belongs to Winterfell and the Starks. You.” 

“This is all quite romantic,” Arya said, teasing but serious but smiling and trying not to roll her eyes all at once. A mess of contradictions, “but I think you should–”

He read her mind, apparently, or knew exactly where it had been going in the first place. He bent down and brought his lips to hers. It was slow for a beat, then grew quicker. Arya hadn’t realized how much she had  _ missed  _ him in this way. 

Without meaning to she had him pushed up against the hallway wall, trying to get a better angle to kiss him with. His hands clasped at her hips, and her arms were around his neck, and she knew this was probably a bad idea to keep kissing her sister’s betrothed in an open hallway where anyone could catch sight of them, but…

Well, frankly, she found it sort of hard to care with his hands on her. 

“I still have to go to Storm’s End at some point,” he said when they pulled back, both of their chests rising with quickened breaths. 

“I’ll come with,” she said with a shrug, as simple as that. She reached up and kissed him again. “We’ve always been at our best with each other.” 

“I think…” He raised a brow. “We should…”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. “Yes. To my chambers. I have a nicer bed.” 

“Oh, a  _ bed _ ,” he teased as she dragged him away, “how  _ fancy.  _ More than a sack of grain? You treat me so kindly, Lady.” 

She stopped right there to turn around and kiss him—hard and with want and also with love—before tugging him further down the hall. She smirked over her shoulder, looking at him with slightly narrowed eyes. “That’s  _ princess  _ to the likes of you.” 

He laughed, sharp and true, and followed her the way Arya thought she was lucky enough that he would probably follow her anywhere. 

* * *

If she had been paying better attention, or really any attention at all, Arya might have noticed the other person stumble at the end of the hall as they turned the corner. They were sort of lost in each other, though, and the fact that they were finally  _ together,  _ that it went entirely unnoticed. It was not, anyways, really  _ her  _ problem at all. She had already done more than her fair share  _ thank you very much.  _


	5. sansa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa brings the journey to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has truly been so much fun to write, so thank you all for coming on this journey with me! i got a bit emotional at the end of this really. 
> 
> there's a pic edit for this fic now on tumblr, which is rebloggable and can be found [here](https://anniebibananie.tumblr.com/post/186003552836/a-moment-to-gather-my-thoughts-teen-23k-in).

Sansa was in the library when Jon Snow stormed in looking some mixture of guilty and upset. 

She had been looking through old scrolls, and while at first it had been in the pursuit of a piece of information she had thought might be hidden within, it had quickly devolved into something else. In a sort of state of longing, she had found herself reading her parents old letters—simply to see if she could hear the familiar pattern of speech in her own head as she read over their words, the penmanship sending something sharp yet melancholic through her. 

After their conversation about him leaving, Sansa had thought maybe she could avoid him if only for the time being. It was a complicated matter. She wanted to soak up every second of him she could while equally she wanted to cut herself off now. It was always hard to suddenly be left without him, and the feeling that he  _ should  _ be near but was not. 

For a moment, as brief as it may have been, she had nearly thought he wanted something from her that she wanted, too. Something he wouldn’t have had to take, but she would have given freely. A mutual love, a mutual adoration. Arya’s words rang in her ears, still. 

“Sansa.” He breathed out her name, and Sansa wasn’t sure if he was meant to sound surprised to find her here when she got the distinct impression he had been looking for her specifically. 

Perhaps he hadn’t thought this far in advance, to arrive and find her here and suddenly have to decide what to say. 

“Yes?” she asked, tilting her head. Her hands went to roll the old scroll up, eyes diverting back to the curve of her mother’s hand before tying it away. They were truly unimportant notes, not much purpose to keeping them at all but her own sentimentality. 

There was so little left of Winterfell from  _ before  _ that it felt important to hold onto what she could, to preserve that memory. Really, the most prominent reminders of what this castle once was were standing in this room. Jon and her, Arya and Bran as well. 

She sighed, feeling a little heavier than normal. With the words of her parents still in her head, with Arya’s insistences hanging in the room, with Jon so near and the knowledge that he would not be for much longer. When she raised her eyes back upward, he was staring at her intently. 

“I…” he trailed off, and his words seemed to be coming out of him slow and heavy. His eyebrows scrunched together. “Sansa, I saw something.” 

She raised a brow. He did have a way of being quite dramatic at times, didn’t he? She brought her hands to the table and pushed her way up to standing, the chair screeching back against the stone before silence fell around them again. For a moment she thought about staying where she was, but the table was still between them and with her standing it somehow felt more awkward. 

By the time she had crossed the room to his side, bringing them within a few steps of one another, his face looked pained beyond belief. His hands were clenched at his sides. Sansa couldn’t for the life of her imagine what had brought him so much pain to tell her. 

“Is everyone okay?” she asked, the thought dawning on her. “Did Arya get hurt? Or Bran, did he–”

“No,” he said sharply, his face falling to something calmer. “I didn’t mean to… No, that's not what this is about.” 

“Well, get on with it,” she said with a small smile. “You  _ are  _ worrying me.” 

His hands went behind his back then back in front of him, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. He cleared his throat. “I saw Arya.” 

Sansa’s brow met in the middle. “Yes?” she prompted, though after a beat of more stilted silence she had a feeling she may know exactly where this was going. 

“With Gendry.” 

Sansa bit the smirk down and kept her eyes downcast, giving a brief nod. “Yes, Jon?” 

“They were…” he trailed off, and when she looked back up he truly did look sad to tell her. Wait, did he think… Gods, she couldn’t begin to assume to know what he thought, anymore. Clearly, she knew nothing about his mind. Perhaps even less about his heart. “They were in quite a compromising situation.” 

She nodded slowly, savoring in his discomfort for a second before deciding to take pity on him. Her smile spread wide across her face. The confusion that hit him like a bucket of cold water was too humorous to help the laugh that danced from her lips. 

“I’m glad,” she said with a shake of her head. “It was about time.” 

“Are you not…” His eyes scanned her face as if trying to pick something out of the features. “ _ What?  _ I’m… confused.” 

“Gendry and Arya are quite in love with one another.” Sansa brought her hands behind her back, standing taller with the truth of it. “Surely you had to know that.” 

“I mean…” He brought up a hand to scratch at the side of his face. His eyes darted between her face and nothing. 

“Jon,” she began, keeping her voice even, “what exactly did you think was going on this whole time?” 

He shook his head, standing up taller. “Are you going to attempt to make me think I’ve been stupid for thinking you had some sort of attachment to the man you were betrothed to? That's not ridiculous, Sansa.”

“I told you the reasons for which I partook in it.” Sansa brought her arms forward and crossed them in front of her chest. “Was love amongst them?” 

“Many betrothals have little to do with love. I didn’t think it out of the realm of possibility to assume you might still be upset about it.” He walked past her and toward the table, leaning against the side of it. He looked in conflict, and when he caught her eyes again there was a depth there, a fierceness, that caught in Sansa’s throat. “I was jealous.” 

Sansa bit her bottom lip. “Of Gendry?” He nodded. “Why didn’t you simply tell me that honestly? Without all the pretense?”

“I didn’t know how.” He sighed, brought his thumb and forefinger to squeeze at the crinkle in his brow. “You didn’t love him?” 

She shook her head. “It was an arrangement,” she said. “Nothing more. He wasn’t ready to go to Storm’s End and be without any of his loved ones. I wasn’t ready to accept a betrothal from anyone else. Well, anyone else who would have willingly offered.” 

His hands dropped to his sides again, though his brow looked just as confused as it had seconds prior. “Why didn’t you ask me? I could have just as easily filled the role.” 

She rolled her eyes and stepped closer to him. There were only three or four lengths holding them apart. It wouldn’t be hard to break it and bring herself right in front of him, to feel the planes of his face and his lips, at the very least, against her forehead. The familiar weight of them both good and bad. 

“I can’t partake in a ruse with you,” she said plainly because she was tired of all the back and forth. Either Arya was right, her gut was right, and Jon loved her or he didn’t. If it was the latter than he could leave for the capitol, and she would get over it on her own. “I love you, and I won’t have you in halves or under false pretenses. I want everything or nothing at all. It is all I can bear.” 

His face smoothed to something unreadable. He pushed up from the table he was leaning on, and in a brief moment he was in front of her. His strong palms cupped her cheeks as if he held them with a sense of reverie, something beautiful and important. 

Sansa thought still they could break her like she was nothing, but she had been broken before. She had been pulled apart and rebuilt, and she could do whatever was laid in front of her. Jon, though, he would never intentionally try to hurt her. It didn’t mean he  _ couldn’t,  _ but he wasn’t currently looking at her like he was capable of it. 

“The thought of you marrying someone else was unbearable,” Jon said, voice sure and thick. “But I thought I had no right to ask anything else of you.” 

“If you had merely asked, I would have given you everything,” Sansa said. 

“I love you.” Jon nodded, and his eyes shone. “I will ask or give whatever you want.” 

Sansa tilted her head to the side, leaning into Jon’s palm further but also bringing a sense of mischief to her posture. “I’m sure a marriage would be a good enough excuse to keep you from the capitol.”

“Sansa…” he trailed off, and she didn’t let him finish his thought. 

Her lips were on his, and the second they were it seemed to snap him awake. His hands moved to her hips to pull her closer, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. His body was flush against her own, and she wished she could get closer. She wished she could step out of her own skin and into his, and still that might not be enough. 

His lips were plush and warm, and when they parted to dip his tongue into her own mouth she couldn’t stop herself from moaning into the touch. She had thought about this in every way possible, and the reality seemed more than she could handle. A simple touch from him, and she was intoxicated. 

“How could I ever say no to anything you ask?” he whispered when they pulled apart. Both of them seemed jittery on their feet, unable to balance quite right. 

She dipped her forehead to his and let them breathe in the same air. 

“Oh, you seemed to have managed it well enough.” She giggled, and a laugh went through his chest and vibrated into her palm which laid there. “Don’t go,” she begged, not feeling weaker in the slightest for it. “Can I ask that of you?” 

His hands went to her cheeks again, and he pulled their faces apart. He pressed his lips to her forehead, kissing them there in a way he had done many times before, and when he brought his gaze back to her she was certain he was going to tell her the words he had said before. He would go and leave her, and she would be left worrying and wanting. 

“I’ve left enough, don’t you think?” His lips quivered, and she could tell he was fighting a smile before he let it envelop his lips. His whole face lit up with the change. “A long time ago you thought I’d leave, and I told you we’d go together. I ended up leaving you anyway.” 

She nodded, didn’t trust herself to say anything. 

“How about we try staying?” he asked, but it was barely a question. It felt as if he was saying  _ I love you  _ all over again. 

She couldn't help herself from kissing him, over his cheeks and his neck and back to his lips, so she didn’t bother trying. She was pretty sure he didn’t mind, anyways. 

* * *

Sansa found Gendry at the parapet of a familiar tower toward the edge of Winterfell, and she thought he might have been there simply because he knew she was going to be. It was one of her favorite spots to feel the chill rush over her skin, remind her she was home. 

It had been hard to leave Jon in bed, but it was important to end promises, or betrothals, properly she thought.

“I heard you cheated on me,” Sansa said. He turned and gave a brief chuckle, the sound gritty. “I have to say... I am quite shocked.” 

“Is that so? Whose bed did you just leave, exactly?” he teased right back. As she came to his side he turned his gaze back forward, and the two of them watched the landscape in the shadowed light peacefully. 

“We did make some sort of mess of all of this, didn’t we?” she asked. 

She could feel his shrug beside her. “I think it worked out well enough, don’t you?”

“How will my reputation ever recover from a broken engagement?” A cold breeze rushed past, and she laughed into it. His laughs met her own, intermingling in a mix of light and low. She turned her gaze to look at him, and he waited a beat before meeting it. 

“I think you will manage as Queen just fine,” he told her. “It was sort of a mess, but we ended up where we were meant to.” 

She nodded in agreement, feeling her lips curve up. “I will miss you when you two leave, you know.” 

He reached out a hand and clasped hers within his. It was rough but warm, solid. Sansa felt grounded. 

“The same to you, but we don’t need to say goodbye just yet.” He turned his eyes back to the view. “I might even miss the snow.” 

“Oh, no you won’t,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t think you ever properly adjusted.” 

He shrugged. He paused. “I love your sister quite a lot.” 

“I know.” 

“I will do everything in my power to make her happy,” he promised.

Sansa squeezed his hand. “I _know_. If you didn’t she would take care of you just fine by herself, I believe.” 

“Probably.” Another breeze. It didn’t feel cold, though. Not at all. “And Jon? Will he stay?” 

Her head bobbed up and down before she jutted her chin forward. “For as long as I can make him. Eventually, he will probably have to go—to the capitol or back to the wall—but he will go with my heart. He will be forced to return it in a timely manner.” 

“I think he could manage it, knowing he had you to return to.” 

She leaned into his side, and he pushed right back, and for a moment they stood in front of their home simply enjoying each other’s company. They thought about the journey they had been on together, and they felt the love pulsing through them, and they squeezed their hands a little tighter. The wind whistled past, but it didn’t seem to find a space between them to rush through. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at: [anniebibananie](http://anniebibananie.tumblr.com/)


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